Demographics of Italy

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Demography of Italy. Data of FAO, year 2003; Number of inhabitants in thousands
Demography of Italy. Data of FAO, year 2003; Number of inhabitants in thousands

Italy has the fifth-highest population density in Europe — about 196 persons per square kilometer (490 per square mile).

Contents

[edit] Population

In October 2007, Italy officially reached more than 59.5 million[1] persons. Italy currently has the fourth largest population in the European Union, and the 23rd largest population in the world. Italy's population density at 196.1 persons per kilometre is the fifth highest in the European Union. The highest density is in Northern Italy, as one third of the country contains almost half of the Italian population. After World War II, Italy saw an economic boom which lead to rural population moving to the cities, and in the same time it turned from a nation characterized by massive emigration to a net immigrant-receiving country. High fertility persisted until the 70s when it plunged below replacement so as of 2007, one in five Italians was pensioners. Despite this, thanks mainly to the immigration of 80s and 90s, in 2000s Italy saw natural population growth for the first time in years.[2]

Families: 23,907,410 (58,802,902 Italians in a familiar status, 2.5 Italians per family)

  • Most populated comune (residents) Rome
  • Least populated comune (residents) Morterone (LC) 33
  • Greatest human density (residents per km²) Portici (NA) 13,032.1
  • Greatest comune territory (km²) Rome (RM) 1,285.30
  • Smallest comune territory (km²) Fiera di Primiero (TN) 0.15

[edit] Metropolitan areas

According to the OECD [4]., these are the major Italian metropolitan areas:

[edit] Cities ranked by population

not representing metropolitan areas: from the December 2004 Istat report (www.istat.it):

Name Population Region
Rome 2,553,873 Lazio
Milan 1,299,439 Lombardy
Naples 1,071,744 Campania
Turin 902,255 Piedmont
Palermo 675,277 Sicily
Genoa 605,084 Liguria
Bologna 374,425 Emilia-Romagna
Florence 368,059 Tuscany
Bari 328,458 Puglia
Catania 305,773 Sicily
Venice 271,251 Veneto
Verona 259,068 Veneto
Messina 247,592 Sicily
Padua 210,821 Veneto
Trieste 207,069 Friuli-Venezia Giulia
Taranto 199,012 Puglia
Brescia 192,164 Lombardy
Prato 185,757 Tuscany
Reggio di Calabria 183,041 Calabria
Modena 180,110 Emilia-Romagna
Parma 174,471 Emilia-Romagna
Cagliari 161,465 Sardegna
Livorno 155,986 Toscana
Perugia 157,842 Umbria
Reggio nell'Emilia 155,191 Emilia-Romagna
Foggia 154,780 Puglia
Ravenna 146,989 Emilia-Romagna
Salerno 135,818 Campania
Rimini 134,700 Emilia-Romagna
Ferrara 131,907 Emilia-Romagna
Sassari 124,929 Sardegna
Syracuse 123,332 Sicily
Pescara 122,577 Abruzzo
Monza 122,263 Lombardy
Bergamo 116,510 Lombardy
Vicenza 113,483 Veneto
Latina 111,946 Lazio
Forlì 111,495 Emilia-Romagna
Trento 110,142 Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol
Terni 108,999 Umbria
Giugliano in Campania 105,951 Campania
Novara 102,746 Piedmont
Ancona 101,797 Marche

[edit] Immigration

Traditionally a country of emigrants, in the last 20 years Italy has become a country of immigration, with about 4.9% of the population fitting that description. 156,179 foreigners were counted in the 1971 census, (Source: Italian Caritas); according to the last figure (Caritas est. 2006 [5]), 3.7 million immigrants live legally in Italy, while estimates for undocumented immigrants vary from 0.8 million to 2 million. Italy has periodically legalized unauthorized foreigners in the past.

Officially, at the end of 2006, foreigners comprised 5% of the population or 2,938,922 persons,[3] an increase of 270,000 since the previous year. In some Italian cities, such as Brescia, Milan, Padua, and Prato, immigrants total more than 10% of the population.

The most recent wave of migration has been from surrounding European nations, particularly Eastern Europe, replacing North Africans as a major source of migrants. Around 500,000 Romanians are officially registered as living in Italy, but unofficial estimates put the actual number at double that figure or perhaps even more.[4] As of 2006, migrants came from other parts of Europe (47.75%), North Africa (17.77%), Asia (17.43%), Latin America (8.90%). Smaller groups came from sub-Saharan Africa, and North America.[3]

Ethnic group Population  % of total*
Ethnic Italian &0000000056000000.00000056,000,000 94.96%
Romanian &0000000000550000.000000550,000[5] 0.93%
Arab &0000000000485000.000000485,000 0.82%
Albanian &0000000000348000.000000348,000 0.60%
Asian (non-Chinese) &0000000000326000.000000326,000 0.55%
German &0000000000287503.000000287,503 0.49%
South American &0000000000239000.000000239,000 0.41%
Black African &0000000000210000.000000210,000 0.36%
Chinese &0000000000128000.000000128,000 0.22%
Ukrainian &0000000000107000.000000107,000 0.18%
Other &0000000000257000.000000257,000 0.43%
* Percentage of total population

Many illegal immigrants from Africa and Eastern Europe work as day laborers in the agriculture of Southern Italy, especially in the citrus and olive groves of Calabria and the tomato factories of Puglia. African immigrants typically pay smugglers in Libya for a transit to the Italian island of Lampedusa. From there they are transferred to detention camps in mainland Italy and eventually released; their deportion orders are not enforced. Working conditions are poor, and in 2006 Médecins sans Frontières opened free clinics for undocumented migrants in Calabria.[6]

Emigrants by ethnicity in 2008:

Group  %
Romanians 15,1%
Moroccans 14,5%
Albanians 10,3%
Ukrainians 5,3%

Source: Corriere della Sera, http://www.corriere.it/english/articoli/2007/10_Ottobre/30/migrants.shtml.

[edit] Languages

Main article: Italian dialects

The official and common language is Italian.

Officially recognized minority language groups are:

Group Population Native language Region
Venetian 4,000,000 Venetian Veneto
Sardinian 1,269,000 Sardinian Sardinia
Friulian 526,000 Friulian Friuli-Venezia Giulia
Albanian 348,813[7] Albanian southern Italy, Sicily
Tyrolean 290,000 German Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol
Occitan 178,000 Occitan Piedmont, Liguria, Calabria
Roma/Sinti 130,000 Romany the whole country
Sard.Sassarese 125,000 Sassarese North-west Sardinia
Corsican 100,000 Gallurese North-east Sardinia
Franco-Provençal 90,000 Franco-Provençal Piedmont, Aosta Valley, Apulia
Slovenian 80,000 Slovenian Friuli-Venezia Giulia
Ladin 55,000 Ladin Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Veneto
French 20,000 French Aosta Valley
Greek 20,000 Griko (Greek) Calabria, Apulia
Catalan 18,000 Alguerese (Catalan) Sardinia
Croatian 2,600 Croatian Molise
Carinthian 2,000 German Friuli-Venezia Giulia
Carnian 1,400 Friulian Friuli-Venezia Giulia

Source: Ministero degli Interni del Governo Italiano.

Official status:

  • German is co-official in the province of Bolzano-Bozen, where in 1991 there were 287,503 German and 116,914 Italian speaking people.
  • Standard French is co-official in the Aosta Valley, but the spoken dialects of this region, and of some northern valleys of Piedmont, are more precisely Franco-Provençal, which boasts some differences from standard French.

[edit] Religion

Main article: Religion in Italy
See also: Christianity in Italy, Islam in Italy, Jews in Italy, Buddhism in Italy, and List of Italian religious minority politicians
Italy religiosity
religion percent
Christianity
  
90%
Irreligion
  
7%
Islam
  
2%
Others
  
1%

Roman Catholicism is by far the largest religion in the country, although the Catholic Church is no longer officially the state religion. 87.8% of Italians identified as Roman Catholic [8], although only about one-third of these described themselves as active members (36.8%). Other Christian groups in Italy include more than 700,000 Eastern Orthodox Christians[9], including 470,000 newcomers[10]and some 180,000 Greek Orthodox, 550,000 Pentecostals and Evangelicals (0.8%), of whom 400,000 are members of the Assemblies of God, 235,685 Jehovah's Witnesses (0.4%)[11], 30,000 Waldensians[12], 25,000 Seventh-day Adventists, 22,000 Mormons, 15,000 Baptists (plus some 5,000 Free Baptists), 7,000 Lutherans, 5,000 Methodists (affiliated to the Waldensian Church)[13]. The country's oldest religious minority is the Jewish community, comprising roughly 45,000 people (0.06%). It is no longer the largest non-Christian group. As a result of significant immigration from other parts of the world, some 825,000 Muslims[14] (1.4% of the total population) live in Italy, though only 50,000 are Italian citizens. In addition, there are 110,000 Buddhists (0.2%)[15][16][10], 70,000 Sikhs[17], and 70,000 Hindus (0.1%) in Italy.

[edit] Other statistical indicators

From the Istat "Demography in figures" 2006, http://www.demo.istat.it/bil2006/index_e.html

Population estimate: 58,751,711 (Istat 2006) Population estimate: 59,131,287 (Istat 2007)

Age structure:
0-14 years: 14.07% (male 4,278,614; female 4,043,286) (2007)
15-64 years: 66.5% (male 19,519,205; female 19,497,430) (2007)
65 years and over: 19.94% (male 4,920,622; female 6,872,130) (2007)

Median age:
total: 42.2 years
male: 40.7 years
female: 43.7 years (2004 est.)

Birth rate: 9.53 births/1,000 population (Istat 2006)

Death rate: 9.49 deaths/1,000 population (Istat 2006)

Net migration rate: 2.06 migrant(s)/1,000 population (Istat 2005)

Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.07 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.06 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.02 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.72 male(s)/female
total population: 0.96 male(s)/female (2004 est.)

Infant mortality rate:
total: 5.83 deaths/1,000 live births
male: 6.42 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 5.19 deaths/1,000 live births (2004 est.)

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 79.81 years
male: 76.88 years
female: 82.94 years (Istat 2005)

Total fertility rate: 1.40 children born/woman (Istat 2007)

HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate: 0.5% (2001 est.)

HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS: 140,000 (2001 est.)

HIV/AIDS - deaths: less than 1,000 (2003 est.)

Nationality:
noun: Italian(s)
adjective: Italian

Ethnic groups:[6] Italian: 95%, other European (mostly Albanian, Romanian, Ukrainian and others) 2.5%, African (mostly North African Arab) 1.5%, others 1%

Religious groups: Roman Catholic: 87%, other Christians: 3%, Muslim: 1.5%

Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 98.6%
male: 99%
female: 98.3% (2003 est.)

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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