 About 40% of the population of the Alpes-Maritimes claim their ancestry as being solely Italian, and as many as 80% of the population can trace some degree of ancestry back to Italy before it was annexed by France in the 1860s.The economy of the Alpes-Maritimes is characterized by the importance of the tertiary sector.The department has, in addition to tourism and traditional services, a relatively high level of corporate research and higher level of services.