Demographic features of the population of Italy include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects.

Quick Facts Italy, Population ...

Demographics of Italy
Population pyramid of Italy as of 2022
Population	58,921,658 (31 October 2023)[1]
Growth rate	-0.30% (2022)
Birth rate	6.7 births/1,000 population (2022)
Death rate	12.1 deaths/1,000 population (2022)
Life expectancy	82 years (2020)
• male	79.7 years
• female	84.4 years
Fertility rate	1.24 children born/parent (2022)
Infant mortality rate	3.6 deaths/1,000 live births (2015)[2]
Net migration rate	1.3 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2020)
Age structure
0–14 years	12.89%
15–64 years	63.57%
65 and over	23.54%
Nationality
Nationality	noun: Italian(s) adjective: Italian
Major ethnic	Italians
Language
Spoken	Italian, others

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At the beginning of 2022, Italy had an estimated population of 58.9 million. Its population density, at 197 inhabitants per square kilometre (510/sq mi), is higher than that of most Western European countries. However, the distribution of the population is very uneven: the most densely populated areas are the Po Valley (with about a third of the country's population) in northern Italy and the metropolitan areas of Rome and Naples in central and southern Italy, while large rural areas are very sparsely populated, like the plateaus of Basilicata, the Alps and Apennines highlands, and the island of Sardinia.

The population of the country almost doubled during the 20th century, but the pattern of growth was extremely uneven due to large-scale internal migration from the rural South to the industrial cities of the North, due to the Italian economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s. In addition, after centuries of net emigration, since the 1980s Italy has experienced large-scale immigration for the first time in modern history. Italian government data, in its annual report for 2019, estimated the number of foreign nationals residing within Italy, including immigrants, at about 5.234 million.^[3] Due to such large-scale immigration to the country, particularly from the early 2000s to 2014, the population peaked at 60.79 million. Since then, decreasing migration, a continuously falling birth rate, and continuous aging have led to a sharp decrease in the Italian population.

High fertility and birth rates persisted until the 1970s, after which they started to dramatically decline, leading to rapid population aging. At the end of the 2000s decade, one in five Italians was over 65 years old.^[4] Italy experienced a short-term growth in birth rates.^[5] The total fertility rate temporarily rose from an all-time low of 1.18 children per woman in 1995 to 1.46 in 2010.^[6] Since then, fertility rates have resumed their decline, to reach a low of 1.24 in 2022.^[7]

Since the revision of the Lateran Treaty in 1984, Italy has no official religion, although it continues to recognize the role the Catholic Church plays in Italian society. In 2017, 78% of the population identified as Catholic, 15% as non-believers or atheists, 2% as other Christians and 6% adhered to other religions.^[8]

Demographic statistics according to the World Population Review in 2022.^[42]

• One birth every 1 minute 18 seconds
• One death every 50 seconds
• Net loss of one person every 3 minutes 6 seconds
• One net migrant every 9 minutes

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^[43]

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In the year 2022 82,216 babies were born to at least one foreign parent which makes up 20.9% of all newborns in that year (20,274 or 5.15% were born to foreign fathers, 8,863 or 2.25% to foreign mothers and 53,079 or 13.49% to two foreign parents). In Southern Italy (including Sicily and Sardinia) only 8.8 percent of all newborns had 1 or 2 foreign parents, whereas in Central and Northern Italy their share reached 23.0 and 29.6 percent, respectively.^[62]

Current vital statistics

^[58]

More information Period, Live births ...

Period	Live births	Deaths	Natural increase
January 2023	33,287	67,132	-33,845
January 2024	31,861	64,769	-32,908
Difference	-1,426 (-4.28%)	-2,363 (-3.52%)	+937

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Obesity – adult prevalence rate

19.9% (2016) Country comparison to the world: 108

Unemployment, youth ages 15–24:

total: 32.2%. Country comparison to the world: 26th

male: 30.4%

female: 34.8% (2018 est.)

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and more recently, the 2004 and 2007 enlargements of the European Union, Italy received growing flows of migrants from the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe (especially Romania, Albania, Ukraine and Poland).^[64] The second most important area of immigration to Italy has always been the neighboring North Africa (especially Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria).^[65] Furthermore, in recent years, growing migration fluxes from the Far East (notably, China^[66] and the Philippines) and Latin America (Ecuador, Peru) have been recorded.

Italy does not collect data on ethnicity or race of the country, but does collect data on nationality of its residents.^[67]

In 2021, Istat estimated that 5,171,894 foreign citizens lived in Italy, representing about 8.7% of the total population.^[33] These figures do not include naturalized foreign-born residents (121,457 foreigners acquired Italian citizenship in 2021)^[68] as well as illegal immigrants, the so-called clandestini, whose numbers, difficult to determine, are thought to be at least 670,000.^[69] Romanians made up the largest community in the country (1,145,718; around 10% of them being ethnic Romani people^[70]), followed by Albanians (441,027) and Moroccans (422,980).^[71][72]

The fourth largest community of foreign residents in Italy was represented by the Chinese.^[73] The majority of Chinese living in Italy are from the city of Wenzhou in the province of Zhejiang.^[74] Breaking down the foreign-born population by continent, in 2020 the figures were as follows: Europe (54%), Africa (22%), Asia (16%), the Americas (8%) and Oceania (0.06%). The distribution of immigrants is largely uneven in Italy: 83% of immigrants live in the northern and central parts of the country (the most economically developed areas), while only 17% live in the southern half of the peninsula.^[75]

Net migration rate

3.21 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2021 est.) Country comparison to the world: 34th

More information Nationality groups, Year ...

Nationality groups	Year
	2002[76]		2005[76]		2010[76]		2015[76]		2019[77]		2021[78]		2023[79]
	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%
Italians	55,651,856	97.64%	55,775,350	96.09%	55,853,967	93.57%	55,460,252	91.98%	54,820,515	91.65%	54,064,319	91.27%	53,855,860	91.29%
Foreigners	1,341,414	2.36%	2,269,018	3.91%	3,836,349	6.43%	4,835,245	8.02%	4,996,158	8.35%	5,171,894	8.73%	5,141,341	8.71%
EU-27	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	1,472,847	2.46%	1,406,623	2.47%	1,393,782	2.36%
Other European	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	1,036,761	1.73%	1,053,765	1.78%	1,024,029	1.74%
Northern Africa	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	639,994	1.07%	689,649	1.16%	689,083	1.17%
Central and South Asia	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	528,182	0.88%	605,000	1.02%	619,671	1.05%
Eastern Asia	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	464,557	0.78%	521,686	0.88%	489,804	0.83%
Western Africa	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	389,602	0.65%	400,112	0.68%	401,218	0.68%
Central and South America	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	345,466	0.58%	366,062	0.62%	370,415	0.63%
Western Asia	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	36,914	–	44,272	–	71,761	–
Eastern Africa	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	37,131	–	35,486	–	35,833	–
Central and South Africa	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	24,919	–	25,343	–	25,299	–
Northern America	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	17,082	–	21,216	–	17,812	–
Oceania	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	2,120	–	2,248	–	1,991	–
Stateless	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	583	–	432	–	643	–
Total	56,993,270	100%	58,044,368	100%	59,690,316	100%	60,295,497	100%	59,816,673	100%	59,236,213	100%	58,997,201	100%

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There are, as of 2022, 5,030,716 Foreign-born residents, accounting for 8.5% of the total population.

Their distribution by country of origin was as follows:

More information Country, Population ...

Country	Population[91]
Romania	1,081,836
Albania	416,829
Morocco	415,088
China	307,038
Ukraine	249,613
Bangladesh	174,058
India	167,333
Philippines	158,926
Egypt	147,797
Pakistan	144,129
Nigeria	123,646
Senegal	112,598
Sri Lanka	109,828
Moldova	109,804
Tunisia	102,422
Peru	98,733
Poland	74,387
Ecuador	63,211
Brazil	51,125
North Macedonia	51,090
Bulgaria	49,518
Ghana	47,335
Russia	39,705
Kosovo	36,372
Germany	34,003
Serbia	30,835
France	29,942
Dominican Republic	29,571
Georgia	29,222
Ivory Coast	28,559
Spain	27,854
United Kingdom	27,758
Cuba	23,351
El Salvador	22,693
Gambia	22,637
Mali	21,032
Colombia	20,856
Bosnia and Herzegovina	20,454

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Italy's official language is Italian; Ethnologue has estimated that there are about 55 million speakers of Italian in the country and a further 6.7 million outside of it, primarily in the neighboring countries and in the Italian diaspora worldwide.^[92] Italian, adopted by the central state after the unification of Italy, is a language based on the Florentine variety of Tuscan and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages and the Gallo-Romance languages. Its development was also influenced by the Germanic languages of the post-Roman invaders. When Italy unified in 1861, only 3% of the population spoke Italian,^[93] even though an estimated 90% of Italians speak Italian as their L1 nowadays.^[94]

Italy is in fact one of the most linguistically diverse countries in Europe,^[95] as there are not only varieties of Italian specific to each cultural region, but also distinct regional and minority languages. The establishment of the national education system has led to the emergence of the former and a decrease in the use of the latter. The spread of Italian was further expanded in the 1950s and 1960s, because of the economic growth and the rise of mass media and television, with the state broadcaster (RAI) setting a colloquial variety of Italian to which the population would be exposed.

As a way to distance itself from the Italianization policies promoted because of nationalism, Italy recognized twelve languages as the Country's "historical linguistic minorities",^[96] which are promoted alongside Italian in their respective territories. French is co-official in the Aosta Valley as the province's prestige variety, under which the more commonly spoken Franco-Provencal dialects have been historically roofed.^[97] German has the same status in the province of South Tyrol as, in some parts of that province and in parts of the neighbouring Trentino, does Ladin.^[98] Slovene^[99] and Friulian are officially recognised in the provinces of Trieste, Gorizia and Udine in Venezia Giulia. In Sardinia, the Sardinian language has been the language traditionally spoken and is often regarded by linguists as constituting its own branch of Romance;^[100] in the 1990s, Sardinian has been recognized as "having equal dignity" with Italian,^[101] the introduction of which to the island officially started under the rule of the House of Savoy in the 18th century.

In these regions, official documents are either bilingual (trilingual in Ladin communities) in the co-official language(s) by default, or available as such upon request. Traffic signs are also multilingual, except in the Valle d'Aosta where French toponyms are generally used, with the exception of Aosta itself, which has retained its Latin form in Italian as well as English. Attempts to Italianize them, especially during the Fascist period, have been formally abandoned. Education is possible in minority languages where such schools are operating.

UNESCO and other authorities recognize a number of other languages which are not legally protected by Italian government: Piedmontese, Venetian, Ligurian, Lombard, Emilian-Romagnolo, Neapolitan and Sicilian.

Roman Catholicism is by far the largest religion in the country, although the Catholic Church is no longer officially the state religion. In 2006, 87.8% of Italy's population self-identified as Roman Catholic,^[103] although only about one-third of these described themselves as active members (36.8%). In 2016, 71.1% of Italian citizens self-identified as Roman Catholic.^[104] This increased again to 78% in 2018.^[8]

Most Italians believe in God, or a form of a spiritual life force. According to a Eurobarometer Poll in 2005:^[105] 74% of Italian citizens responded that 'they believe there is a God', 16% answered that 'they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force' and 6% answered that 'they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force'. There are no data collected through census.

Literacy

definition: age 15 and over can read and write

total population: 99.2%

male: 99.4%

female: 99% (2018 est.)

School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education)

total: 16 years

male: 16 years

female: 17 years (2018)

The genetic history of Italy is greatly influenced by geography and history. The ancestors of Italians are mostly Indo-European speakers (Italic peoples such as Latins, Umbrians, Samnites, Oscans, Sicels and Adriatic Veneti, as well as Celts, Iapygians and Greeks) and pre-Indo-European speakers (Etruscans, Ligures, Rhaetians and Camunni in mainland Italy, Sicani and Elymians in Sicily and the Nuragic people in Sardinia). During the imperial period of Ancient Rome, the city of Rome was also home to people from various regions throughout the Mediterranean basin, including Southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.^[122] Based on DNA analysis, there is evidence of ancient regional genetic substructure and continuity within modern Italy dating to the pre-Roman and Roman periods.^{[123][124][125][126]}

Within the Italian population, there is enough cultural, linguistic, genetic and historical diversity for them to constitute several distinct groups throughout the peninsula.^[127] In this regard, peoples like the Friulians, the Ladins, the Sardinians and the South Tyroleans, who also happen to constitute recognized linguistic minorities, or even the Sicilians who are not, are cases in point, attesting to such internal diversity.

Linguistic minorities in Italy include Sardu-speakers 1 million, Tyrolese German-speakers 350,000, Albanians 70,000 – 100,000, Slovenes 60,000, Franco-Provençal-speakers 50,000 – 70,000, Occitans 20,000 – 40,000, Ladins 30,000, Catalans 15,000, Greek-speakers 12,000, Croatians 3,000 and Friulians 600,000. The Roma community is one of the largest ethnic minorities in Italy. Due to the lack of disaggregated data the size of the Italian Roma community remains unknown. The Council of Europe estimates that between 120,000 and 180,000 Roma live in Italy. A significant proportion of Roma in Italy do not have Italian citizenship.^[128]

• List of Italians
• Italian diaspora
• Italian Americans
• Italian Brazilians
• Italian Argentines
• Italian Venezuelans
• Romani people in Italy