ABSTRACT
Background Information Italy is a peninsula in the center of the Mediterranean Sea, comprising many different kinds of territory: coasts, islands, plains, and even high mountains. The number of inhabitants is around 60.5 million (ISTAT, 2011; all the statistics reported come from ISTAT, National Institute of Statistics, if no other reference is indicated), making Italy one of the most densely populated countries in Europe. The inhabitants are not distributed evenly; nearly two-thirds live in urban zones.
