, dwindling
natural gas and crude oil reserves, fish, coal

Land use: 32% arable land; 10% permanent crops; 17% meadows and pastures;
22% forest and woodland; 19% other; includes 10% irrigated

Environment: regional risks include landslides, mudflows, snowslides,
earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, flooding, pollution; land sinkage in Venice

Note: strategic location dominating central Mediterranean as
well as southern sea and air approaches to Western Europe

- People
Population: 57,664,405 (July 1990), growth rate 0.2% (1990)

Birth rate: 10 births/1,000 population (1990)

Death rate: 9 deaths/1,000 population (1990)

Net migration rate: 1 migrant/1,000 population (1990)

Infant mortality rate: 6 deaths/1,000 live births (1990)

Life expectancy at birth: 74 years male, 81 years female (1990)

Total fertility rate: 1.4 children born/woman (1990)

Nationality: noun--Italian(s); adjective--Italian

Ethnic divisions: primarily Italian but population includes small clusters
of German-, French-, and Slovene-Italians in the north and Albanian-Italians
in the south; Sicilians; Sardinians

Religion: almost 100% nominally Roman Catholic

Language: Italian; parts of Trentino-Alto Adige region are predominantly
German speaking; significant French-speaking minority in Valle d'Aosta region;
Slovene-speaking minority in the Trieste-Gorizia area

Literacy: 93%

Labor force: 23,670,000; 56.7% services, 37.9% industry, 5.4% agriculture
(1987)

Organized labor: 40-45% of labor force (est.)

- Government
Long-form name: Italian Republic

Type: republic

Capital: Rome

Administrative divisions: 20 regions (regioni, singular--regione);
Abruzzi, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Emilia-Romagna, Friuli-Venezia Giulia,
Lazio, Liguria, Lombardia, Marche, Molise, Piemonte, Puglia, Sardegna, Sicilia,
Toscana, Trentino-Alto Adige, Umbria, Valle d'Aosta, Veneto

Independence: 17 March 1861, Kingdom of Italy proclaimed

Constitution: 1 January 1948

Legal system: based on civil law system, with ecclesiastical law
influence; judicial review under certain conditions in Constitutional Court;
has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction

National holiday: Anniversary of the Republic, 2 June (1946)

Executive branch: president, prime minister,

Legislative branch: bicameral Parliament (Parlamento) consists of
an upper chamber or Senate (Senato) and a lower chamber or Chamber of Deputies
(Camera dei Deputati)

Judicial bra