Everything you need to know about Italy
Italy changes as you travel from the Alps to Sicily. Its twenty regions have their own food and local traditions, shaped by centuries before unification. Explore the maps and learn the stories behind the places. Then practise the Italian you will use at the café or on your next train journey.
Read it, then make it stick
Geography of Italy
The Alps close off the north, while the Apennines run down the peninsula. Between them, the broad Po Valley holds much of the northern farmland. Sicily and Sardinia extend the country far beyond the familiar outline of the boot.
Know the shape of the country
Start with the twenty regions, then place thirty cities within them. A third map follows the rivers across the north and explores the lakes and seas around the peninsula.
Places worth visiting
Essential · Ancient Rome
Colosseum
Ancient Rome’s great amphitheater. One ticket also covers the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill.
Start with Rome and Renaissance Florence, then go further to the Dolomites and the volcanoes and temples of Sicily. Essential is our shortlist for a first trip, and worth a detour goes further. Select a pin to read about a place, then play the map and find them all.
Take Italian with you
Greetings and politeness
Hello, please, thank you, sorry: the ten openers everything else builds on.
Keep going one country deeper
When you have had your fill of Italy, the countries in white have a guide like this one, and every other has maps of its own.
Europe
- Albania
- Andorra
- Armenia
- Austria
- Azerbaijan
- Belarus
- Belgium
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Cyprus
- Czechia
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- France
- Georgia
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- Iceland
- Ireland
- Kosovo
- Latvia
- Liechtenstein
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Malta
- Moldova
- Monaco
- Montenegro
- Netherlands
- North Macedonia
- Northern Cyprus
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Russia
- San Marino
- Serbia
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Türkiye
- Ukraine
- United Kingdom
- Vatican City
Asia
- Afghanistan
- Bahrain
- Bangladesh
- Bhutan
- Brunei
- Cambodia
- China
- India
- Indonesia
- Iran
- Iraq
- Israel
- Japan
- Jordan
- Kazakhstan
- Kuwait
- Kyrgyzstan
- Laos
- Lebanon
- Malaysia
- Maldives
- Mongolia
- Myanmar
- Nepal
- North Korea
- Oman
- Pakistan
- Palestine
- Philippines
- Qatar
- Saudi Arabia
- Singapore
- South Korea
- Sri Lanka
- Syria
- Taiwan
- Tajikistan
- Thailand
- Timor-Leste
- Turkmenistan
- United Arab Emirates
- Uzbekistan
- Vietnam
- Yemen
North America
Africa
- Algeria
- Angola
- Benin
- Botswana
- Burkina Faso
- Burundi
- Cameroon
- Central African Republic
- Chad
- Côte d’Ivoire
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Djibouti
- Egypt
- Eritrea
- Ethiopia
- Gabon
- Ghana
- Guinea
- Guinea-Bissau
- Kenya
- Liberia
- Libya
- Madagascar
- Mali
- Mauritania
- Morocco
- Mozambique
- Namibia
- Niger
- Nigeria
- Republic of the Congo
- Rwanda
- Senegal
- Sierra Leone
- Somalia
- Somaliland
- South Africa
- South Sudan
- Sudan
- Tanzania
- Togo
- Tunisia
- Uganda
- Western Sahara
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe