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- Oct 30, 2021
- 3 min read

Italy

Updated: Sep 30, 2022

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Country Name Italy or The Italian Republic.

Location

Italy is located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea.

Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia,

San Marino, and Vatican City. It is also bordered to the north by the Alps.

San Marino and Vatican City are two independent states inside the Italian

territory.

Capital

Rome.

Reason for Naming the country

The name "Italy" comes from the Greek word "italus", which means "land of calves", as the bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War.

The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy, (modern Calabria).

The Greeks gradually came to apply the name "Italia" to a larger region, but it was during the reign of Emperor Augustus (end of the 1st century BC) that the term was expanded to cover the entire peninsula until the Alps.

Flag

The current flag of Italy was updated on June 18, 1946. It was officially adopted on 1 January 1948. The Italian flag consists of three equal-sized vertical stripes of green, white, and red.

The flag is a vertical tricolor flag that is known in Italian as il Tricolore.

It features three stripes of equal sizes, with the green located on the left “hoist” side, white in the middle, and red on the right. The design is very similar to the tricolor flag of France.

Italy’s national flag has meaning in its design – particularly the three colors chosen for the flag, Red, and white were the colors of Milan, while green was the color of the Milanese civic guard uniforms. However, some see the colors as holding more significance.

It is thought that the green color is representative of Italy’s land.

the white color represents the snow-topped peaks of the Alps, the red color represents the bloodshed during the Wars of Italian Independence and Unification. However, some believe that the flag has more religious symbolism, with the three colors representing the virtues of hope, faith, and charity.

*Flag Facts:

-The flag of Mexico is similar to the flag of Italy, the only distinguishable bit between the two flags is the coat of arms featured on the Mexican flag.

-Although both flags use similar colors, the Mexican flag has darker shades of red and green. While the Italian flag is more square-shaped, the Mexican flag has a longer shape.

Language

The official language in Italy is Italian. Italian was adopted by the state after the unification of Italy. It is considered a Romance language and is more closely related to Latin than any other Romance language.

A number of minority languages are also spoken in Italy. Many of them have been classified as historical language minorities by the government of Italy, including French, Greek, German, Sardinian, Albanian, Occitan, Croatian, Slovene, Ladin, Friulian, Catalan, and Franco-Provencal.

Religion

Although it is not considered the official religion of the state, Roman Catholic Christianity is the largest religion in the country till now. Although the main Christian denomination in Italy is Catholic, there are certain minorities of Protestants, Waldensian, Eastern Orthodox, and other Christian Churches.

The oldest religions in Italy are Judaism, where Jews lived in ancient Rome before the birth of Christ. Because of immigration from all over the world, the proportion of non-Christian religions has increased. Like Islam, there are also Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, and Baha'is.

Currency

Euro €.

Time Zone

+01:00 GMT.

+02:00 GMT (Summer Time).

Government Regime

Unitary parliamentary constitutional republic.

Climate

Italy's climate is the climate of the Mediterranean Sea, characterized by a mild winter and summer heat. Humidity is high in summer, especially in areas near the sea. While snow-covered the foothills of the Alps and the Abyanese in the north.

The best time to visit the main Italian cities is the spring: from mid-April to late May, temperatures are pleasant, the days are quite long, the sun often shines and nature is in bloom, though sometimes it can rain. Another good period is the first half of September. Between mid-September and mid-October, the temperatures are pleasantly warm, but it can rain, especially in the north and center of the country. November is typically a rainy month throughout Italy, even though the sun still shines quite often in the south. In early spring, from March to mid-April, the weather can be sunny and mild, but also cold and wet: it's a fairly unstable period.