Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Italy

Map of population density in Italy as of the 2011 census

At the end of 2013, Italy had 60,782,668 inhabitants.^[172] The resulting population density, at 202 inhabitants per square kilometre (520/sq mi), is 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. High fertility and birth rates persisted until the 1970s, after which they start to dramatically decline, leading to rapid population ageing. At the end of the 2000s (decade), one in five Italians was over 65 years old.^[173] However, in recent years Italy experienced a significant growth in birth rates.^[174] 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.^[175] The TFR is expected to reach 1.6–1.8 in 2030.^[176]
From the late 19th century until the 1960s Italy was a country of mass emigration. Between 1898 and 1914, the peak years of Italian diaspora, approximately 750,000 Italians emigrated each year.^[177] The diaspora concerned more than 25 million Italians and it is considered the biggest mass migration of contemporary times.^[178] As a result, today more than 4.1 million Italian citizens are living abroad,^[179] while at least 60 million people of full or part Italian ancestry live outside of Italy, most notably in Argentina,^[180] Brazil,^[181] Uruguay,^[182] Venezuela,^[183] the United States,^[184] Canada,^[185] Australia^[186] and France.^[187]

v t e Largest cities or towns in Italy ISTAT estimates for 31 December 2014
	Rank	Name	Region	Pop.	Rank	Name	Region	Pop.
Rome Milan	1	Rome	Lazio	2,872,021	11	Venice	Veneto	264,579	Naples Turin
	2	Milan	Lombardy	1,337,155	12	Verona	Veneto	260,125
	3	Naples	Campania	978,399	13	Messina	Sicily	240,414
	4	Turin	Piedmont	896,773	14	Padua	Veneto	211,210
	5	Palermo	Sicily	678,492	15	Trieste	Friuli-Venezia Giulia	205,413
	6	Genoa	Liguria	592,507	16	Taranto	Apulia	202,016
	7	Bologna	Emilia-Romagna	386,181	17	Brescia	Lombardy	196,058
	8	Florence	Tuscany	381,037	18	Prato	Tuscany	191,002
	9	Bari	Apulia	327,361	19	Parma	Emilia-Romagna	190,284
	10	Catania	Sicily	315,601	20	Modena	Emilia-Romagna	185,148