6 million foreign residents,[154] making up some 7.5% of the total population, include more than half a million children born in Italy to foreign nationals—second generation immigrants, but e

 Philippines    152,382   
 India    145,164   
The postwar economic miracle, ending many decades of poverty and emigration, induced big social changes such as lower birth rates, an aging population and thus a shrinking workforce. Under these circumstances, starting from the late 1970s, Italy became to attract increasing flows of foreign immigrants. The present-day figure of about 4.6 million foreign residents,[154] making up some 7.5% of the total population, include more than half a million children born in Italy to foreign nationals—second generation immigrants, but exclude foreign nationals who have subsequently acquired Italian nationality; this applied to 53,696 people in 2008.[155]
The official figures also exclude illegal immigrants, whose numbers are very difficult to determine; they are estimated to be at least 670,000.[156] Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and, more recently, the 2004 and 2007 enlargements of the European Union, the main waves of migration have originated from former socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (especially Romania, Albania, Ukraine and Poland). The second most important area of immigration to Italy has always been the neighbouring North Africa (in particular, Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia), with soaring arrivals as a consequence of the Arab Spring. Furthermore, in recent years, growing migration fluxes from the Far East (notably, China[157] and the Philippines) and Latin America (Ecuador, Peru) have been recorded.
Currently, about one million Romanian citizens (around one tenth of them being Roma[158]) are officially registered as living in Italy, representing thus the most important individual country of origin, followed by Albanians and Moroccans with about 500,000 people each. The number of unregistered Romanians is difficult to estimate, but the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network suggested in 2007 that there might have been half a million or more.[159][note 3]
Overall, at the end of 2000s (decade) the foreign born population of Italy was from: Europe (54%), Africa (22%), Asia (16%), the Americas (8%) and Oceania (0.06%). The distribution of immigrants is largely uneven in Italy: 87% of immigrants live in the northern and central parts of the country (the most economically developed areas), while only 13% live in the southern half of the peninsula.
Languages
Main article: Languages of Italy

Circle frame.svg Foreign population resident in Italy.[141] European Union (29.2%)

    198,714
7    Bologna    Emilia-Romagna    373,010    17    Brescia    Lombardy    188,872
8    Florence    Tuscany    362,389    18    Prato    Tuscany    186,878
9    Bari    Apulia    314,258    19    Reggio Calabria    Calabria    180,728
10    Catania    Sicily    293,112    20    Modena    Emilia-Romagna    179,244
Ethnic groups
Main article: Immigration to Italy


Circle frame.svg
Foreign population resident in Italy.[141]
  European Union (29.2%)
  Europe non-EU (24.2%)
  North Africa (14.9%)
  South Asia (8.8%)
  East Asia (8.0%)
  Latin America (7.7%)
  Sub-Saharan Africa (6.7%)
  Other (0.5%)
Italy was a country of mass emigration from the late 19th century until the 1960s. Between 1898 and 1914, the peak years of Italian diaspora, approximately 750,000 Italians emigrated each year.[142] The diaspora concerned more than 25 million Italians and it is considered the biggest mass migration of contemporary times.[143] As a result, today more than 4.1 million Italian-born people are living abroad,[144] while at least 60 million people of full or part Italian ancestry live outside of Italy, most notably in Argentina,[145] Brazil,[146] Uruguay,[147] Venezuela,[148] the United States,[149] Canada,[150] Australia,[151] and France.[152]
Immigrants by country
Country    2012[153]   
 Romania    997,000   
 Morocco    506,369   
 Albania    491,495   
 China    277,570   
 Ukraine    223,782   

e first time in modern history. According to the Italian government, there were 4,570,317 foreign

higher than that of most Western European countries. However the distribution of the population is widely uneven. The most densely populated areas are the Po Valley (that accounts for almost a half of the national population) and the metropolitan areas of Rome and Naples, while vast regions such as the Alps and Apennines highlands, the plateaus of Basilicata and the island of Sardinia are very sparsely populated.
The population of Italy almost doubled during the 20th century, but the pattern of growth was extremely uneven because of large-scale internal migration from the rural South to the industrial cities of the North, a phenomenon which happened as a consequence of the Italian economic miracle of the 1950–1960s. In addition, after centuries of net emigration, from the 1980s Italy has experienced large-scale immigration for the first time in modern history. According to the Italian government, there were 4,570,317 foreign residents in Italy as of January 2011.[136]
High fertility and birth rates persisted until the 1970s, after which they start to dramatically decline, leading to rapid population aging. At the end of the 2000s (decade), one in five Italians was over 65 years old.[137] However, thanks mainly to the massive immigration of the last two decades, in recent years Italy experienced a significant growth in birth rates.[138] The total fertility rate has also climbed from an all-time low of 1.18 children per woman in 1995 to 1.41 in 2008.[139] The TFR is expected to reach 1.6 - 1.8 in 2030.[140]

v t e Largest cities or towns of Italy
ISTAT estimates for 31 October 2012
Rank    Name    Region    Pop.    Rank    Name    Region    Pop.   
Rome
Rome
Milan
Milan    1    Rome    Lazio    2,641,930    11    Venice    Veneto    259,771    Naples
Naples
Turin
Turin
2    Milan    Lombardy    1,245,956    12    Verona    Veneto    252,240
3    Naples    Campania    960,521    13    Messina    Sicily    242,018
4    Turin    Piedmont    872,158    14    Padua    Veneto    204,656
5    Palermo    Sicily    655,604    15    Trieste    Friuli-Venezia Giulia    201,195
6    Genoa    Liguria    583,089    16    Taranto    Apulia