Twitter Updates follow me on Twitter Italy (Italian: Italia), officially the Italian Republic, (Italian: Repubblica Italiana), is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within the Italian Peninsula, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. Italy has been the home of many European cultures, such as the Etruscans and the Romans, and later was the birthplace of the movement of the Renaissance, that began in Tuscany and spread all over Europe. Italy's capital Rome was for centuries the center of Western civilization, it also spawned the Baroque movement and seats the Catholic Church. Today, Italy is a democratic republic and a developed country with the 20th highest GDP per capita, the 8th-highest Quality-of-life index, and the 20th-highest Human Development Index rating in the world. It is a founding member of what is now the European Union (having signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957), and also a member of the G8 (having the world's 7th largest nominal GDP), NATO, OECD, the Council of Europe, the Western European Union, the Central European Initiative, and a Schengen state. On January 1, 2007, Italy began a two year term as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. read full wikipedia reference about Italy OTHER POPULAR DESTINATIONS IN EUROPE Albania Andorra Austria Belarus Belgium Bosnia Herzegovina Bulgaria Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Faroe Islands Finland France Germany Gibraltar Greece Greenland Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy Latvia Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macedonia Malta Moldova Monaco Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russian Federation San Marino Scotland Slovak Republic Slovenia Spain Svalbard and Jan Mayen Sweden Switzerland Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom Yugoslavia

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