Xenophobe's Guide to the Italians

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The Italian population is 58 million – compared with 7.6 million Swiss, 8 million Austrians, 10 million Greeks, 52 million English, 64 million French, 82 million Germans, and 307 million Americans.

Italy is 7 times larger than Denmark and 3 times larger than Austria, but could fit nearly twice into France.

The Italians are not a race, but a collection of peoples. They tend to think of themselves and each other first and foremost as Romans, Milanese, Sicilians or Florentines, and secondly as Italians. There is little that really links Turin and Bari, or Naples and Trieste, except the autostrada, the rail network and the Catholic Church.

The regions of Italy are very different from one another and the deeply ingrained regionalism is quite understandable considering that Italy has only existed as a nation since 1861, before which the Italian peninsula consisted of several independent states. The unification process required a skilful exercise in geopolitical patchwork, and the leading politicians of the time were well aware of the difficulties ahead. They included Massimo D’Azeglio who said: ‘Italy has been made at last; now let us make the Italians.’ Were he alive today, he would still be working at it.

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