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Language and population of Italy


Italy has 60,626,442 inhabitants according to 1/1/2011 municipal records (Anagrafe).Its population density, at 201/km² (520/sq. mile), is higher than that of most Western European countries.


However the distrubution of the population is widely uneven.

The most densely populated areas are the Po Valley (that accounts for almost a half of the national population) and the metropolitan areas of Rome and Naples, while vast regions such as the Alps and Appennines highlands, the plateaus of Basilicata and the island of Sardinia are very sparsely populated.



High fertility and birth rates persisted until the 1970s, after wich they started to drammatically decline, leading to rapid population ageing.

At the end of the 2000s, one in five Italians was over 65 years old.



Italy has no official religion.

The 1984 Lateran Treaty revision abolished the Roman Catholic Church as the official state religion, while recognizing the role it plays in Italian society. 87.8% of the population define themselves as Catholic, 5.8% as non-believers or atheists, and 6.4% other religions, of which 2.6% Islam.


Italy\'s official language is Italian.





Italy has numerous dialects spoken all over the country. However, the establishment of a national education system has led to decrease in variation in the languages spoken across the country.


Several ethnic groups are legally recognized, and a number of minority languages have co-official status alongside Italian in various parts of the country.




Traffic signs are also multilingual, except in the Valle d’Aosta where—with the exception of Aosta itself which has retained its Latin form in Italian as in English—French toponyms are generally used, attempts to Italianise them during the Fascist period having been abandoned.

Education is possible in minority languages where such schools are operating.