
Italy
became a nation-state in 1861 when the city-states of the peninsula,
along with Sardinia
and Sicily, were united under King Victor Emmanuel. An era
of parliamentary government came to a close in the early 1920s
when
Benito Mussolini
established a Fascist dictatorship. His disastrous alliance with
Nazi Germany led to Italy's defeat in World War II. A democratic
republic replaced the monarchy in 1946 and economic revival followed.
Italy was a charter member of NATO and the European Economic Community
(EEC). It has been at the forefront of European economic and political
unification, joining the European Monetary Union in 1999. Persistent
problems include illegal immigration, organized crime, corruption,
high unemployment, and the low incomes and technical standards
of southern Italy compared with the prosperous north.Southern Europe, a peninsula extending
into the central Mediterranean Sea, northeast of Tunisia Predominantly
Mediterranean; Alpine in far north; hot, dry in south Austria 430 km, France 488 km,
Holy See (Vatican City) 3.2 km, San Marino 39 km, Slovenia 232
km, Switzerland 740 km