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People
The Italian population consists almost entirely of native-born people,
many of whom identify themselves closely with a particular region
of Italy.
The country can be generally divided into the more urban north (the
area from the northern border and the port of Ancona to the southern
part of Rome) and the mostly rural south (everything below this
line, which is called the "Ancona Wall" by Italians).
The more prosperous north contains most of Italy's larger cities
and about two-thirds of the country's population; the primarily
agricultural south has a smaller population base and a more limited
economy. In recent decades the population has generally migrated
from rural to urban areas; the population was 67 percent urban in
1996.
Language
The overwhelming majority of the people speak Italian. German is
spoken around Bolzano, in the north near the Austrian border. Other
minority languages include French (spoken in the Valle d' Aosta
region), Ladin, Albanian, Slovene, Catalan, Friulian, Sardinian,
Croatian, and Greek.
Religion
The dominant religion of Italy is Roman Catholicism, the faith of
about 84 percent of the people. However, the Catholic church's role
in Italy is declining; only about 25 percent of Italians attend
mass regularly, and a law ratified in 1985 abolished Roman Catholicism
as the official state religion and ended mandatory religious instruction
in public schools. The constitution guarantees freedom of worship
to the religious minorities, which are primarily Protestant, Muslim,
and Jewish.
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