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Italian Peninsula

Peninsula in south-central Europe

Satellite view of the peninsula in March 2003

The Italian Peninsula (Italian: penisola italica or penisola italiana) is located within the Italian geographical region; it extends from the southern Alps in the north to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south which comprises much of the country of Italy and the enclaved microstates of San Marino and Vatican City. The peninsula is also known as the Italic Peninsula, Apennine Peninsula, Italian Boot, or Mainland Italy.

Overview

It is nicknamed lo Stivale ("the Boot"), because the shape of the peninsula resembles a high-heeled boot. Three smaller peninsulas contribute to this characteristic shape, namely Calabria ("the Toe"), Salento ("the Heel") and Gargano ("the Spur"). The backbone of the Italian Peninsula consists of the Apennine Mountains, from which it takes one of its names. The Peninsula comprises much of Italy and also includes the enclaved microstates of San Marino and Vatican City.

Physical geography

Geographically, the minimum extent of the Italian Peninsula consists of the land south of a line extending from the Magra to the Rubicon rivers, north of the Tuscan–Emilian Apennines. It excludes the Po Valley and the southern slopes of the Alps. Touring Club Italiano, Conosci l'Italia – Vol. I: L'Italia fisica, 1957. The Italian Peninsula has the only active volcano on continental Europe, Mount Vesuvius.

Political geography

In general discourse, "Italy" and the "Italian Peninsula" are often used as synonymous terms. However, northern Italy may be excluded from the Italian Peninsula. From a political point of view, the Italian Peninsula in the strict sense (therefore excluding insular Italy and northern Italy) is divided into various states listed in the following table:

Country	Population	Peninsular area	Description	km2
Italy	26,140,000	131,275 km2	99.9531%	Virtually the entire peninsula
San Marino	31,887	61.2 km2	0.0466%	A central-eastern enclave of peninsular Italy
Vatican City	829	0.49 km2	0.0003%	An enclave of Rome, Italy

References

(June 2023). "The BOOT of ITALY".
De Agostini Ed., ''L'Enciclopedia Geografica – Vol. I - Italia'', 2004, p. 78.
"Mount Vesuvius, Italy: Map, Facts, Eruption Pictures, Pompeii".
Vocabolario Treccani, ''[https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/peninsulare/ Peninsulare]''
De Agostini Ed., ''L'Enciclopedia Geografica - Vol. I - Italia'', 2004, p.78
Touring Club Italiano, ''Conosci l'Italia - Vol. I: L'Italia fisica'', 1957
Population includes only the inhabitants of the Italian peninsula, excluding [[northern Italy]] and [[insular Italy]] ([[Sardinia]] and [[Sicily]]).

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

geography-of-italy geography-of-san-marino geography-of-vatican-city metropolitan-or-continental-parts-of-states peninsulas-of-europe peninsulas-of-italy regions-of-europe

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