
The Colosseum in Rome,.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Italy is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within the Italian Peninsula, and Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland.
The land known as Italy today has been the cradle of many European cultures and peoples, such as the Etruscans and the Romans. Later it was an important centre of the Renaissance, and also played a major role in the development of modern science and astronomy, particularly heliocentrism, as well as the University, and opera. Italy's capital, Rome, was for centuries the center of Western civilization. Today, the cultural significance of Italy is reflected in the fact that it boasts by far the largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the world.
Contemporary Italy is a democratic republic and a developed country with the eighth-highest quality of life index rating in the world. It is a founding member of what is now the European Union, having signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957, and it is a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It is a member of the G8, having the world's seventh-largest nominal GDP, and is also a member state of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Council of Europe, the Western European Union, and the Central European Initiative.
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