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Sardinia (Italy)

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Italy is located in southern Europe. It is bound by Tyrrhenian and Ligurian Seas to the west, France to the northwest, Switzerland and Austria to the north, Slovenia to the northeast, the Adriatic Sea to the east as well as the Ionian and Mediterranean Seas to the south. The territory includes the mainland and the islands of Sardinia and Sicily as well as some other smaller islands.

The country is predominantly mountainous with plains accounting for less than 33% of the land area. The two principal mountain ranges are:

1. The Alps which are divided into the three ranges of the Western Alps, the Central Alps and the Eastern Alps.
2. The Apennines which is divided into the Northern or Ligurian Apennines and the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines. Except for the Po Plain, the plains of Italy are small in land area and numbers.

The principal rivers are the Po, Tevere or Tiber, Arno, Volturno, Liri and Adige as well as many shorter rivers that flow to the Adriatic Sea.

Major Cities (pop. est.); Rome 2,723,300, Milan 1,358,600, Naples 1,071,700, Turin 952,700, Palermo 696,700, Genoa 667,600, Bologna 401,300, Florence 397,400 (1993). Land Use; forested 23%, pastures 15%, agricultural-cultivated 40%, other 22% (1993).

Sardinia is an autonomous region of Italy. The regional capital is Cagliari. The region is divided into eight provinces:

1. Cagliari
2. Sassari
3. Nuoro
4. Oristano
5. Olbia-Tempio
6. Ogliastra
7. Carbonia-Iglesias
8. Medio Campidano

See also: Sardinian towns

Sardinia is one of two Italian regions whose inhabitants have been recognised as a "popolo" (i.e. a distinct people) by the Italian Parliament. The other region is Veneto.

Italy Geography MORE

Italy has a temperate climate with a variety of regional characteristics. The Alps region has harsh winters and moderately warm summers with abundant rainfall. The Po Plain has harsh winters with long periods of subfreezing temperatures and warm sultry summers, with rainfall more common in winter. The Alpennine region has extremely mild winters and hot summers. Italy is also subject to fierce seasonal winds. Average temperature ranges in Rome are from 4 to 11 degrees Celsius (39 to 52 degrees Fahrenheit) in January to 20 to 30 degrees Celsius (68 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit) in July.

Italy Weather Now

Sardinia Environment

The principal ethnic majority are the Italians who account for 99% of the population and are an ethnic amalgamation of Lombard and Goths from the north, Greeks, Spaniards and Saracens from Sicily, Latins in and around Rome, Etruscans and others from Central Italy. Other ethnic minorities include the German speaking population of Bolzano, Tyroleans, Greeks, Albanians, Slovenes and a small number of French speakers.

Italian People MORE

Italian Culture MORE

Italy is largely homogeneous in language and religion but is diverse culturally, economically, and politically. The country has the fifth-highest population density in Europe at 194 persons per square kilometre. Indigenous minority groups are small. For a country of 58.4 million people, Italy has a smaller number of migrants compared to France and Germany.

Since the beginning of Roman civilisation, important ethnic groups like Greek settlers, Germanic and Celtic invaders and plunderers, and Norman colonisers have all left important impressions on the people today. However, they have all been absorbed in a homogenous Italian ethnic group.

The number of immigrants or foreign residents in Italy have steadily increased to reach 2,402,157, according to the latest figures (2004) of ISTAT. They currently make up a little more than 4 per cent of the official total population. According to 2004 statistics (ISTAT), the largest foreign minorities are Albanians (316,659), Moroccan (294,945), Romanian (248,8491), Chinese (111,712), and Ukrainian (93,441). Remaining groups include those who are Tunisian, Macedonians, Serbians, and Filipinos etc.

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The Chamber of Deputies has officially 630 members (de facto, 619 only after the 2001 elections). In addition to 315 senators, elected members, the Senate includes former presidents and several other persons (no more than 5) appointed for life by the President of the Republic according to special constitutional provisions. Both houses are elected for a maximum of 5 years, but either may be dissolved before the expiration of its normal term. Legislative bills may originate in either house and must be passed by a majority in both.

The Italian judicial system is based on Roman law modified by the Napoleonic code and later statutes. A constitutional court, the Corte Costituzionale, passes on the constitutionality of laws, and is a post-World War II innovation.

All the Italian citizens older than 18 can vote. To vote for the senate, the voter must be at least 25.

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Mostly Christians with 83% of the population Roman Catholic while there are also Protestant minorities. Other religious minorities include Jews and Muslims.

The official language is Italian which is spoken by 94% of the population. Each region has its own dialect and other minority languages include Sardinian, Rhaetian, German and French.

The Sardinian language is one of the principal elements of Sardinian cultural heritage, and there is great activity of late dedicated to studying the language and acknowledging its importance. The recognition of the Sardinian language as a characteristic ethnic element is supported not only by independentist movements, but is also supported by a wide percentage of local population as a whole, as well as the international support of the Sardinian diaspora.

The Sardinian language has recently been recognised as an official regional language by the Sardinian Autonomous Region; it can therefore be used for official purposes on the island. The debate as to its legality had became quite dramatic by the 1980s: at Alghero's Fertilia international airport, in a Sardinian Catalan-speaking area, an employee was heard over the loudspeakers (provocatively) announcing the flights in Italian, English and Sardinian Catalan. The employee was fired and penally condemned, causing widespread Sardinian nationalist sentiment, sometimes including violent political disputes which finally led to the law officialising the language. (Note that it must be said that in Alghero the need of diversifying the cultural position was perhaps even more urgent, since in its origins and its history are the distinctive signs of an ethnic enclave surrounded by a Sardinian culture, which in turn has been oppressed by an external culture.)

Learn Italian
While it is possible for foreigners to live in Italy and Sardinia without speaking the local language, it is highly recommended that you obtain a basic knowledge of one of the lcoal languages, if only to be polite.

To get you started and introduce you to Italian, we have put some basic phrases in Italian below.

Click to hear the Italian phrase, the words to the right of the icon are how to say it.

Numbers
0	Zero
1	Uno
2	Salve
3	Tre
4	Quattro
5	Cinque
6	Sei
7	Sette
8	Otto
9	Nove
10	Ten
11	Undici
12	Dodici
13	Tredici
14	Quattordici
15	Quindici
16	Sedici
17	Diciasette
18	Diciotto
19	Diciannove
20	Venti
21	Ventuno
22	Ventidue
30	Trenta
40	Quaranta
50	Cinquarta
60	Sessanta
70	Settanta
80	Ottanta
90	Novanta
100	Cento
101	Centouno
102	Centodue
111	Centoundici
125	Centventicinque
1,000	Mille
Phrases
Hello	Ciao
Goodbye	Ciao!
Hi	Salve
Yes	Si
No	No
Very Good	Motto Bene
Excellent	Benissimo
Thank you	Grazie
OK / Good	Va Bene
Good day	Buongiorno
Good evening	Buonasera
Good night	Buonanotte
Please	Per Favore
See you later	Ci Vediamo!
How are you?	Come stai? (informal)
Very well thanks and you?	Motto bene, e tu? (informal)
Your welcome	Prego
It was nothing	Niente
Cheers (toast)	Salute!
Excuse me / sorry !	Scusa!
See you tomorrow	Ci Vediamo Domani!
May I?	Permesso?
Do you speak English?	Parla Inglese?
I don't speak Italian	Non parlo Italiano
I understood	Ho Capito
Coul you say that again please?	Puoi Ripetere, Per Fabore?

Aged 25 or over and having attained: no formal schooling 19.3%, primary 47.4%, lower secondary 18.0%, upper secondary 11.2%, higher 4.1% (1981). Literacy; literate population aged 15 or over 47,507,000 or 97.1% (1990). MORE

Italy has influenced the cultural and social development of the whole Mediterranean area, deeply influencing European culture as well. Important cultures and civilizations have existed there since prehistoric times. After Magna Graecia, the Etruscan civilization and especially the Roman Republic and Empire that dominated this part of the world for many centuries, Italy was central to European science and art during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Modern Italy became a nation-state belatedly — on March 17, 1861, when most of the states of the peninsula were united under king Victor Emmanuel II of the Savoy dynasty, which ruled over Sardinia and Piedmont. The architects of Italian unification were Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, the Chief Minister of Victor Emmanuel, and Giuseppe Garibaldi, a general and national hero. Rome itself remained for a decade under the Papacy, and became part of the Kingdom of Italy only on September 20, 1870. The Vatican is now an independent enclave surrounded by Rome.

Italian History MORE

Sardinian History

Sardinia's history is very ancient. In 1979 human remains were found that were dated to 150,000 BCE.

In Prehistory Sardinia's inhabitants developed a trade in obsidian, a stone used for the production of the first rough tools, and this activity brought Sardinians into contact with most of the Mediterranean people. Desiccated grapes, recently found in several locations, were DNA tested and proved to be the oldest grapes in the world, dating back to the Pyramids' and Mesopotamia’s era. The Cannonau wine is made with these grapes and may qualify as the mother of all the European wines.

From Neolithic times till the Roman Empire, the Nuragic civilisation took shape on the island. Still today, more than 9,000 Nuraghe survive. It is speculated that, among others, the Shardana people landed in Sardinia coming from the eastern Mediterranean. Shardana had joined the Shekelesh and others to form the coalition of the Sea Peoples, but were defeated by Ramses III around 1180 BC in Egypt. Shardana and Shekelesh were also called by the Egyptians as the "people from the faraway islands", implying that Shardana were already residents of Sardinia at the time of the Egyptian expedition. This assertion holds some truth; in fact most of the tombe dei giganti have a tombstone shaped like a ship vertically dug into the ground, bearing witness to their sea traveling activities. According to some linguistic studies, the town of Sardis in Lydia would have been their starting point from which they would have reached the Tyrrhenian Sea, dividing into what were to become the Sardinians and the Etruscans.

However most theories regarding the original population of Sardinia have been formulated prior to genetics research and in the traditional frame of east-west movements. Genetics has now shown that Sardinians are a pre-Indo-European population and, like Basque, different from all surrounding and much younger groups.

The density, extensiveness and sheer size of the architectural remains from the Neolithic period, points to a considerable population of the island.

Beginning around 1000 BC, Phoenician mariners established several ports of trade on the Sardinian coast. In 509 BC, war broke out between the native Nuragic people and the Phoenician settlers. The settlers called for help from Carthage, and the island became a province in the Carthaginian Empire. In 238 BC, after being defeated by the Roman Republic during the First Punic War, Carthage ceded Sardinia to Rome.

From 456 - 534, Sardinia was a part of the short-lived kingdom of the Vandals in North Africa, until reconquered by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I. Under the Byzantines, the imperial representative was a judge who governed from the southern city of Caralis. Byzantine rule was practically nonexistent in the mountainous Barbagia region in the eastern part of the island, and an independent kingdom persisted there from the sixth through ninth centuries.

Beginning in the eighth century, Arabs and Berbers began raiding Sardinia. Especially after the conquering of Sicily in 832, the Byzantines were unable to effectively defend their most distant province, and the provincial judge assumed independent authority. To provide for local defense, he divided the island into four Giudicati, Gallura, Logudoro, Arborea, and Caralis. By 900, these districts had become four independent constitutional monarchies. At various times, these fell under the sway of Genoa and Pisa. In 1323, the Kingdom of Aragon began a campaign to conquer Sardinia; the giudicato of Arborea successfully resisted this and for a time came to control nearly the entire island, but its last ruler Eleanor of Arborea, was eventually defeated by the Aragonese in the decisive Battle of Sanluri, June 30, 1409. The native population of the city of Alghero (S'Alighera in Sardinian, L'Alguer in Catalan) was expelled and the city repopulated by the Catalan invaders, whose descendants spoke Catalan till quite recently. After the merge of the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, Sardinia was incorporated into the newly created national entity, Spain.

This was the first time Turks lost out to Europeans signaling a trend of military decline and defeats from which Turks never recovered.

Sardinian History MORE

The official currency is the Euro divided into 100 cents.

Italy has a diversified industrial economy with roughly the same total and per capita output as France and the United Kingdom. This capitalistic economy remains divided into a developed industrial north, dominated by private companies, and a less developed agricultural south (with 20% unemployment). In comparison to its western European neighbours, it has a high number of small to medium sized enterprises (SMEes).

Most raw materials needed by industry and more than 75% of energy requirements are imported. Over the past decade, Italy has pursued a tight fiscal policy in order to meet the requirements of the Economic and Monetary Union and has benefited from lower interest and inflation rates. Italy joined the Euro from its conception in 1999.

Italy's economic performance has at times lagged behind that of its EU partners, and the current government has enacted numerous short-term reforms aimed at improving competitiveness and long-term growth. It has moved slowly, however, on implementing certain structural reforms favoured by economists, such as lightening the high tax burden and overhauling Italy's rigid labour market and expensive pension system, because of the current economic slowdown and opposition from labour unions.

Sardinia's currency (as a part of Italy) is now the Euro, but in some rural areas Sardinians and towns, above all Cagliari, still unofficially refer to su Francu (or loc. "su Pidzu"); 1 francu = 1,000 former Italian lire. "Unu Francu", referring to the now long-gone money, is a term used by older natives to mean some small amount, much as in English "It's not worth the price".

Several gold and silver mines operate on the island.

The Sardinian economy is today focused on tourism (peaking with the Costa Smeralda), industry, commerce, services and information technology; an increasing income is coming from its famous wines and gastronomy.

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Railroads; route length 19,566 km (12,158 mi) (1988), passenger-km 44,328,000,000 (27,544,000,000 passenger-mi) (1989), cargo ton-km 20,856,000,000 (14,284,000,000 short ton-mi) (1989). Roads; length 301,846 km (187,558 mi) (1986). Vehicles; cars 24,307,000 (1989), trucks and buses 2,082,000 (1989). Merchant Marine; vessels 1,616 (1990), deadweight tonnage 11,840,826 (1990). Air Transport; passenger-km 22,754,000,000 (14,139,000,000 passenger-mi) (1990), cargo ton-km 1,168,400,000 (800,237,000 short ton-mi) (1990).

Trains on Sardinia connect the whole island but are rather slow. Some run on narrow gauge track. Many tourists catch the trenino verde which runs through the wildest parts of the island. It is slow but it allows the traveller to have scenic views impossible to see from the main road. The train connects Cagliari to Arbatax in the south and Sassari to Palau in the north. It is highly recommended to make the trip from Macomer to Bosa Marina, where the train winds its way through the typical Sardinian landscape to reach the sea near the coastal town of Bosa situated in the west of the island.

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Daily Newspapers; total of 111 with a total circulation of 9,048,700 (1993). Radio; receivers 45,350,000 (1994). Television; receivers 17,000,500 (1994). Telephones; units 32,945,122 (1992).

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322,300 (1994) total active duty personnel with 63.6% army, 13.7% navy and 22.7% air force while military expenditure accounts for 2.1% (1991) of the Gross National Product (GNP).

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Link - Provides detailed information and statistics on Geography, People, Government, Economy, Communications, Transportation, Military and Transnational Issues.   This is an invaluable resource for anyone looking for specific information or statistics relating to the country.

Link - World Bank Dat Profile provides key statistical information on People, Environment, Economy, Technology Infrastructure, Trade & Finance

Links - link to a Wikipedia page providing a wealth of information from History and Culture through to Politics and Religion

Link - link to the latest New Headlines for this country

Link - link to Human Rights report for this country produces by Amnesty International

Link - link to GE Source World Guide providing country profile, demographics, economic data, satellite images

Ministero degli Affari Esteri - Italian Foreign Office