Fun Facts: Italy
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Interesting Facts about Italy:
- Italy has a population of just over 60 million and somewhere around 50 million visitors annually, making it one of the top five most visited countries in the world.
- The modern Italian language is based on the Tuscany dialect as spoken by the writer Dante Alighieri (1265-1321).
- Italy has the highest number of cultural sites recognized by UNESCO World Heritage.
- 95% of Italians are Roman Catholic but only about 30% attend church regularly.
- Before switching to the Euro, Italy’s currency was known as the lira.
- When the first McDonald’s opened in Rome in 1986, protesters gave away free spaghetti to remind Italians of their culinary heritage.
- The Sapienza University of Rome was founded in 1303, making it one of the oldest in the world. It is also the largest in all of Europe with 147,000 students. “Sapienza” means “wisdom” or “knowledge” in Italian.
- Many of the native plant and animal species in Italy have gone extinct because of the last 3,000 years of over farming and hunting, including the European subspecies of lions.
- The longest river in Italy is the Po.
- The area around Venice is the wealthiest region in Europe.
Posted on: July 21, 2010 | Categories: Fun Facts - Cultures and Countries, Italy
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