* As of 1/8/2026
1 birth
Every 1.4 minutes
1 death
Every 47.1 seconds
1 immigrant
Every 9.0 minutes
1 person
Every 2.3 minutes
462K
500K
750K
1M
2.5M
4.4M
The official Census figures are more optimistic, estimating the population at 61,838,227 in 2016. Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is located in Southern Europe and bordered by France, Slovenia, Austria and Switzerland along the Alps. This famously boot-shaped country is the 4th most populous country in Europe (after France, the United Kingdom, and Germany).
There are also close to 1 million Romanian citizens officially registered in Italy, followed by Moroccans and Albanians with a population of half a million each.
The largest ethnic group in Italy is the Native Italian, comprising 96% of the population.
The official language is Italian, while there are a variety of areas that use primarily German, French, and Slovene.
Italian (95%)
Other (5%)
The main religion in Italy is Christian.
Christian
unaffiliated
Muslim
Other
The median age of Italy is currently at 45.5 years of age, with a total life expectancy of 82 years.
Unsurprisingly, the dominant religion in Italy is Roman Catholicism, with the Vatican City in the heart of Rome. People identifying as some form of Christian make up in excess of 80% of the population. Islam is the second most practiced religion in Italy, although the numbers don’t come close to Christianity.
Italy’s economy is largely industrial, although this means something different in the north versus the south. Northern Italy contains mostly private companies, whereas the south is more agricultural and welfare dependent. There is also a substantial underground economy in Italy which is estimated to account for as much as 15% of their GDP.
After the country abolished its monarchy in 1946, it became a democratic republic and has remained as such ever since.
Italy experienced mass emigration from the end of the 19th century through the 1960s with nearly 750,000 Italians emigrating per year from 1898 to 1914. It’s thought that this is the largest mass migration in contemporary times and led to a diaspora of 25 million Italians. Today, over 5 million Italian-born people live abroad.
By the late 1970s, however, Italy began to attract a great deal of foreign immigrants. It’s estimated there are over 5 million foreign residents in Italy today, which accounts for 7.5% of the total population. This includes about 500,000 children born in Italy to foreign nationals.
Official figures for Italy’s population exclude illegal immigrants, as their numbers are hard to determine. Estimates place their numbers at 670,000 today, many of which are from Eastern Europe and North Africa. The number of illegal immigrants entering the country has increased by 43% in 2016, according to best estimates.
