Italy

Italy is mostly mountain and hill. The Alps arc across the north, and the Apennines run down the peninsula like a spine into Calabria and on to Sicily. Between them lies the Po Valley, the country’s one large plain and its richest farmland, while glaciers carved the long lakes of Garda, Como and Maggiore at the foot of the Alps. Italy sits where the African and Eurasian plates meet, so earthquakes are frequent, and Etna and Stromboli are among Europe’s most active volcanoes.

Etruscans and Greeks shared the peninsula before Rome came to rule it, and then the whole Mediterranean. After the western empire fell in the fifth century, Italy stayed divided for more than a thousand years. Venice, Genoa, Florence and Milan grew rich on trade and banking, and their patrons paid for the Renaissance, while the popes governed central Italy. The Risorgimento unified the country between 1859 and 1870. Mussolini’s dictatorship took Italy into the Second World War; a referendum in 1946 made it a republic.

Many Italians identify first with their town or region, and the differences show at the table: butter and rice in the north, olive oil and tomatoes in the south, and a pasta shape for nearly every province. Dante, Galileo, Michelangelo and Verdi are national touchstones. The industrial north builds machinery, cars and motorbikes, districts of family firms make clothes, shoes, furniture and tiles, and food and wine from Parmigiano Reggiano to Barolo are exported worldwide.