Italy, officially the Italian Republic is a

unitary parliamentary republic in Southern

Europe. To the north, Italy borders France,

Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia, and is

roughly delimited by the Alpine watershed,

enclosing the Po Valley and the Venetian

Plain. To the south, it consists of the entirety

of the Italian Peninsula and the two biggest

Mediterranean islands of Sicily and Sardinia,

in addition to many other smaller islands.

Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 (116,347

sq mi) and has a largely temperate climate.

With 61 million inhabitants, it is the 5th most

populous country in Europe. Among the

world's most developed countries, Italy has

the 4th-largest economy in the European

Union, 3rd in the Eurozone and 9th in the

world by GDP (IMF, 2012).

In the years that followed, Italy abolished

the monarchy, reinstated democracy, and

enjoyed a prolonged economic boom, thus

becoming one of the most developed nations

in the world with the fifth largest economy

by nominal GDP by the early 1990s.

Italy was a founding member of NATO in 1949

and one of the Inner Six of the European

Community in 1957, which became the EU in

1993. It is part of the Schengen Area, and has

been a member of the Eurozone since 1999.

Italy is considered to be a major European

power able to exert its influence on a global

scale with membership in prominent

institutions or groups such as the UN, the EU,

the NATO, the OECD, the OSCE, the DAC, the

WTO, the G4, G6, G7, G8, G10, G20, the

Union for the Mediterranean, the Latin

Union, the Council of Europe, the Central

European Initiative and the Uniting for

Consensus. Italy currently maintains the

world's tenth-largest nominal defence budget

and is a participant in the NATO nuclear

sharing policy.