Italian institute

According to the Italian National Institute of Statistics(opens in new tab), Italy is home to

approximately 59.6 million individuals as of 1 January 2020. About 96 percent of the
population of Italy are ethnic Italians according to Jen Green, author of "Focus On
Italy(opens in new tab)" (Gareth Stevens Publishing, 2007), though there are many
other ethnicities that live in this country. North African Arab, Italo-Albanian, Albanian,
German, Austrian and some other European groups fill out the remainder of the
population. Bordering countries of France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia to the
north have influenced Italian culture, as have the Mediterranean islands of Sardinia
and Sicily and Sardinia.
Of the 59.6 million people living in Italy as of 1 January 2020, 48.7 percent are men,
51.3 percent are women. 13 percent are children aged up to 15, 63.8 percent are
believed to be aged 15 – 64 and 23.2 percent are 65 or older. 14,804 are 100 years
old or older. The largest percentage of the population, 26.8, lives in the North West
of Italy. The largest city by population is Rome with over 2.8 million residents, while
the smallest municipality is Morterone with a population of just 30 people.

LANGUAGES OF ITALY
The official language of the country is Italian. About 93 percent of the Italian
population speaks Italian as native language, according to the BBC. There are a
number of dialects of the language spoken in the country, including Sardinian,
Friulian, Neapolitan, Sicilian, Ligurian, Piedmontese, Venetian and Calabrian.
Milanese is also spoken in Milan. Other languages spoken by native Italians include
Albanian, Bavarian, Catalan, Cimbrian, Corsican, Croatian, French, German, Greek,
Slovenian and Walser.
FAMILY LIFE IN ITALY
"Family is an extremely important value within the Italian culture," Talia Wagner, a
Los Angeles-based marriage and family therapist, told Live Science. Their family
solidarity is focused on extended family rather than the West's idea of "the nuclear
family," of just a mom, dad and kids, Wagner explained.

Italians have frequent family gatherings and enjoy spending time with those in their
family. "Children are reared to remain close to the family upon adulthood and
incorporate their future family into the larger network," said Wagner.

The family structure has changed somewhat over the last 60 years. Gian Carlo
Blangiardo, professor of Statistics and Quantitative Methods at the University of
Milano-Bicocca and Stefania Rimoldi, researcher in demography at the University of
Milano-Bicocca, explained in "Portraits of the Italian Family: Past, Present and
Future(opens in new tab)" for the "Journal of Comparative Family Studies Vol. 45"
(University of Toronto Press, 2014)that the mean age of a marriage is now 31 for
women and 34 for men, seven years older than it was in 1975. This has been linked
to an increase in cohabitation before marriage and an overall decline in the number
of marriages.

Pope Francis addresses a crowd in St. Peter’s square from the balcony of the apostolic palace in August 2021. (Image credit:
ALBERTO PIZZOLI / Contributor via Getty Images)
 RELIGION IN ITALY
The major religion in Italy is Roman Catholicism. This is not surprising, as Vatican
City, located in the heart of Rome, is the hub of Roman Catholicism and where
the Pope resides. Roman Catholics and other Christians make up 80 percent of the
population, though only one-third of those are practicing Catholics. The country also
has a growing Muslim immigrant community, according to the University of
Michigan(opens in new tab). Muslim, agnostic and atheist make up the other 20
percent of the population, according to the Central Intelligence Agency(opens in new
tab).
The number of Italians who attend religious services at least once a week has
declined substantially from 2006 to 2020, according to Statista(opens in new tab). A
little over 18 million Italians aged six and older attended weekly services in 2006,
down to 12 million by 2020.