At the beginning of 2024, the number of residents in Florence amounted to 367,581 people. Specifically, two thirds of the population were aged between 15 and 64. Over 65 citizens account for 28 percent of the total, whereas the inhabitants between 0 and 14 years old are only a small minority.

At the beginning of 2024, the total number of Florence inhabitants amounts to 367,581 people. In particular, females represent more than half of the population, with almost 200,000 (53 percent), whereas males account for only 47 percent of the residents.

Rome is the most populous city in Italy. With 2.75 million inhabitants, the capital of the country put ahead Milan and Naples. Compared to the number of citizens in 2012, the resident population of Rome increased by over 140,000 individuals. Regional data Rome is located in the center of Italy in the Lazio region. Lazio is the second-largest region in terms of population size after Lombardy. In 2024, the region counts roughly 5.7 million inhabitants, whereas Lombardy has over ten million individuals. The third-largest region is Campania, with 5.6 million people. Naples, the major center of Campania, has around 910,000 inhabitants at the beginning of 2024. Nevertheless, this city was, back in the 19th century, one of the largest cities in Western Europe. Tourism in Rome The Eternal City is also the main tourist destination in Italy and was the eighth most-visited city in Europe. The largest groups of international visitors in Rome came from the United States of America, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Every year, more and more tourists also enjoy the best-known tourist attractions in Rome, like the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Palatine Hill, which together recorded almost ten million visitors in 2022.

The statistic shows the opinion on welcoming immigrants and refugees in Italy in 2016. According to the survey, ** percent of respondents within the population of Florence believed that Italians have to welcome only the refugees and reject those people who migrate for economic reasons.

At the beginning of 2024, the most populous immigrant community in Florence was that of Romania, with 7,200 residents. The Peruvian and Chinese citizens consisted of 6,300 people each, with Albania being the fourth most represented country with 4,600 nationals.

This gazetteer is a joint product of two research projects, UrbanOccupationsOETR (European Research Council - Starting Grant, Industrialisation and Urban Growth from the mid-nineteenth century Ottoman Empire to Contemporary Turkey in a Comparative Perspective, 1850-2000, https://urbanoccupations.ku.edu.tr, Grant agreement ID: 679097) and POPGEO_BG (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship, Population Geography of Bulgaria, 1500- 1920: A Historical Spatial Analysis, https://popgeo.ku.edu.tr, Grant agreement ID: 867474) both funded by the European Commission.

M. Erdem Kabadayı and Grigor Boykov have been the principal investigators of UrbanOccupationsOETR and POPGEO_BG, respectively.

This unprecedented large-scale Ottoman gazetteer is based on mid-nineteenth century population registers (NFS.d. with their archival fond) available at the Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye, Directorate of State Archives. Its current first version enlists 16.296 populated places (12.285 and 4.011 geolocated within UrbanOccupationsOETR and POPGEO_BG, respectively) extracted from 764 population registers dating between 1830 and 1849. For details of the geolocation procedure, especially for UrbanOccupationsOETR but also valid to a large extent POPGEO_BG, see:

Ma, Jilian, Akın Sefer, and M. Erdem Kabadayı. “Geolocating Ottoman Settlements: The Use of Historical Maps for Digital Humanities.” In Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium of the International Cartography Commission on the History of Cartography “Mapping the Ottoman Realm: Travelers, Cartographers and Archaeologists” 21–23 April 2020, Istanbul, Turkey (Rescheduled for December 2021, Florence, Italy), edited by Imre Josef Demhardt, Vol. 3. Göttingen: Copernicus Publications, 2021. https://doi.org/10.5194/ica-proc-3-10-2021.

The gazetteer is available in the format of a spreadsheet with 15 columns. It provides the following information for all of the 16.296 enlisted populated places:

• longitude
• latitude
• register_date_in_Hicri (calendar)
• doc_type (mufassal or icmal population registers)
• NFS.d. register_number (as in the archival fond)
• project (acronym)
• toponym_modern (current toponym in various languages depending on the location of the populated place today). For 797 populated places, toponym_modern is entered as ‘vanished.’ These populated places are all geolocated with coordinates by using georeferenced historical maps. However, no current settlements could be identified in their locations.
• toponym Ottoman in NFS.d. (typed as accurately as possible in Arabic script copying from the Ottoman population registers)
• toponym transcribed (original handwritten Ottoman to Latin script, as a principle, following the Redhouse lexicon) from NFS.d.
• kaza (the Ottoman administrative unit on the sub-district level as stated) in NFS.d.
• kaza_1848_1264 and liva_1848_1264 correspondences of enlisted kaza information in NFS.d. registers according to the official Ottoman yearbook dating to 1848 (1264 in Hicri):
  • Salname-i Devlet-i Aliye-i Osmaniye. 2nd edition. Istanbul: Darü’t-Tıbaatü’l-Amire, 1264.
• (Unique) populated place id (number)

As well as two additional administrative levels, divan and nahiye for the limited number of populated places.

POPGEO_BG was an individual fellowship; therefore, Grigor Boykov has contributed to the construction of this section of the gazetteer single-handedly, from its conceptualization to the data entry and control.

UrbanOccupationsOETR, on the other hand, sustained a large research team between 01.10.2016 and 30.09.2022 at Koç University and several team members contributed to the gazetteer in varying capacities:

M. Erdem Kabadayı conceptualized and designed the research with support from Grigor Boykov. M. Erdem Kabadayı, Akın Sefer, Grigor Boykov, and Piet Gerrits supervised the project. Piet Gerrits designed and maintained graphical user interfaces for geolocation and data entry. Akın Sefer as a team leader, located, evaluated, and selected the population registers, supervised and controlled geolocation and data entry, and conducted data curation, coding, control, and cleaning. Efe Erünal, Aysel Yıldız, and Semih Çelik also conducted source selection. Efe Erünal was also active in geolocation and data entry control.

Following UrbanOccupationsOETR team members in alphabetical order geolocated populated places and entered data into our geospatial databases: Akın Sefer, Aysel Yıldız, Barış Yıldırım, Deniz Ali Uyan, Efe Erünal, Fulya Özturan, Jilian Ma, Mertkan Karaca, Nikola Rakovski, Semih Çelik, Şehnaz İyibaş.

External researchers Furkan Elmas and Alper Kara conducted Ottoman transcription corrections and new entries under the supervision of Akın Sefer.

Piet Gerrits maintained the digital research infrastructure of the UrbanOccupationsOETR and merged the POPGEO_BG dataset to construct the gazetteer. Furthermore, he also prepared the GeoPackage and data visualization interface available at: https://urbanoccupations.ku.edu.tr/gazetteer/.

This gazetteer is a work in progress, and we would appreciate critical feedback to improve it in its following versions. Please get in touch with mkabadayi@ku.edu.tr / mekabadayi@gmail.com / grigor.boykov@univie.ac.at / griboykov@yahoo.com for your correction suggestions and inquiries.

If you would like to use the gazetteer in further publication, please use the credentials specified below:

Milan, Bologna, Genoa, Florence, and Turin recorded a population increase between 2022 and 2023. In fact, all the other largest municipalities registered a decrease, most prominently in the south and on the islands. However, Naples is the third-largest Italian municipality, after Rome and Milan.

In 2024, the total number of tourist overnight stays in Florence, including international and domestic travelers, grew by *** percent over the previous year. Despite the annual increase, total overnight stays in the popular Italian destination remained below pre-pandemic levels, reaching approximately ** million in 2024. How many hotels are there in Florence? The number of hotels in Florence experienced a slight annual increase in 2024, with over *** such establishments in the city. According to an analysis on the average price of four-star hotels in Italian cities, Florence was one of the most expensive destinations for a hotel stay in 2025, ranking just behind Venice. What are the most popular cultural attractions in Florence? In 2024, the Uffizi Galleries in Florence were among the most visited museums and archaeological sites in Italy, reporting the second-highest attendance after the Colosseum in Rome. The Gallery of the Academy and the Bargello Museum were other popular attractions in the city that year, welcoming around *** million and over ****** visitors, respectively.

Throughout the early modern period, the largest city in Italy was Naples. The middle ages saw many metropolitan areas along the Mediterranean grow to become the largest in Europe, as they developed into meeting ports for merchants travelling between the three continents. Italy, throughout this time, was not a unified country, but rather a collection of smaller states that had many cultural similarities, and political control of these cities regularly shifted over the given period. Across this time, the population of each city generally grew between each century, but a series of plague outbreaks in the 1600s devastated the populations of Italy's metropolitan areas, which can be observed here. Naples At the beginning of the 1500s, the Kingdom of Naples was taken under the control of the Spanish crown, where its capital grew to become the largest city in the newly-expanding Spanish Empire. Prosperity then grew in the 16th and 17th centuries, before the city's international importance declined in the 18th century. There is also a noticeable dip in Naples' population size between 1600 and 1700, due to an outbreak of plague in 1656 that almost halved the population. Today, Naples is just the third largest city in Italy, behind Rome and Milan. Rome Over 2,000 years ago, Rome became the first city in the world to have a population of more than one million people, and in 2021, it was Italy's largest city with a population of 2.8 million; however it did go through a period of great decline in the middle ages. After the Fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476CE, Rome's population dropped rapidly, below 100,000 inhabitants in 500CE. 1,000 years later, Rome was an important city in Europe as it was the seat of the Catholic Church, and it had a powerful banking sector, but its population was just 55,000 people as it did not have the same appeal for merchants or migrants held by the other port cities. A series of reforms by the Papacy in the late-1500s then saw significant improvements to infrastructure, housing, and sanitation, and living standards rose greatly. Over the following centuries, the Papacy consolidated its power in the center of the Italian peninsula, which brought stability to the region, and the city of Rome became a cultural center. Across this period, Rome's population grew almost three times larger, which was the highest level of growth of these cities.

In 2023, the biggest communities of foreign nationals in Italy were in Milan, Bologna, Florence, Turin, Rome, and Genoa, where more than ten percent of the inhabitants were not of Italian origin. These cities are mostly located in the north of the country. On the contrary, in the southern municipalities of Bari, Catania, and Palermo the incidence of the immigrant population is minimal, well below **** percent. Italian demographics In 2024, beyond **** million foreign residents lived in Italy, compared to the total population of ** million inhabitants. Projections assert that in the upcoming years, the number of Italian citizens will progressively decrease, mostly given to the aging population and low birth rates. In fact, it has been predicted that the median age could reach **** years by 2050, whereas the country experienced a constant decline in the number of births. In 2010, almost ******* babies came into life, but ten years later only ******* births were recorded. The divide between north and south From the distribution of immigrant residents, there is an evident separation between the northern Italian regions and the southern part of the country, making those territories less attractive for foreigners in terms of work opportunities. Analysis on the index of the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in 2005, in 2015 and 2025 reveal that the total wealth produced by the southern region represents only half of the one recorded in the north. Moreover, in 2023 the unemployment rate in northern regions was around **** percent, whereas in the south it reached ** percent.

This statistic shows the ten largest cities in Italy in 2025. In 2025, around 2.75 million people lived in Rome, making it the largest city in Italy. Population of Italy Italy has high population figures and a high population density in comparison to other European countries. A vast majority of Italians lives in urban areas and in the metropolises (as can be seen in this statistic), while other areas, such as the island Sardinia, are rather sparsely inhabited. After an increase a few years ago, Italy’s fertility rate, i.e. the average amount of children born to a woman of childbearing age, is now on a slow decline; however, it is still high enough to offset any significant effect the decrease might have on the country’s number of inhabitants. The median age of Italy’s population has been increasing rapidly over the past 50 years – which mirrors a lower mortality rate – and Italy is now among the countries with the highest life expectancy worldwide, only surpassed by two Asian countries, namely Japan and Hong Kong. Currently, the average life expectancy at birth in Italy is at about 83 years. Most of Italy’s population is of Roman Catholic faith. The country actually boasts one of the largest numbers of Catholics worldwide; other such countries include Brazil, Mexico and the United States. The central government of the Roman Catholic Church, the Holy See, is located in Vatican City in the heart of Italy’s capital and ruled by the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. Officially, Vatican City does not belong to Italy, but is a sovereign state with its own legislation and jurisdiction. It has about 600 inhabitants, who are almost exclusively members of the clergy or government officials.

In 2015, the number of cars in use in the province of Florence was about *** thousand. By 2018, it had reached approximately *** thousand. Throughout this period, Florence was the province with the largest car population in Tuscany.

After entering Italy, the coronavirus (COVID-19) spread fast. The strict lockdown implemented by the government during the Spring 2020 helped to slow down the outbreak. However, the country had to face four new harsh waves of contagion. As of January 1, 2025, the total number of cases reported by the authorities reached over 26.9 million. The north of the country was mostly hit, and the region with the highest number of cases was Lombardy, which registered almost 4.4 million of them. The north-eastern region of Veneto and the southern region of Campania followed in the list. When adjusting these figures for the population size of each region, however, the picture changed, with the region of Veneto being the area where the virus had the highest relative incidence. Coronavirus in Italy Italy has been among the countries most impacted by the coronavirus outbreak. Moreover, the number of deaths due to coronavirus recorded in Italy is significantly high, making it one of the countries with the highest fatality rates worldwide, especially in the first stages of the pandemic. In particular, a very high mortality rate was recorded among patients aged 80 years or older. Impact on the economy The lockdown imposed during the Spring 2020, and other measures taken in the following months to contain the pandemic, forced many businesses to shut their doors and caused industrial production to slow down significantly. As a result, consumption fell, with the sectors most severely hit being hospitality and tourism, air transport, and automotive. Several predictions about the evolution of the global economy were published at the beginning of the pandemic, based on different scenarios about the development of the pandemic. According to the official results, it appeared that the coronavirus outbreak had caused Italy’s GDP to shrink by approximately nine percent in 2020.

In 2022, the northern Italian province of Imperia recorded the largest number of sexual violences compared to the population, with 23.55 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. Bologna followed with 21.65 violences per 100,000 residents, whereas Trieste, in the north-east, registered 18.85 cases every 100,000 inhabitants.

In 2023, the highest unemployment rate was registered in the south of Italy. For Campania, Calabria, and Sicily, the shares of citizens without a job ranged from 16.1 percent to 17.8 percent. The disparities in unemployment indicators can be observed not only on the regional level, but also among genders. In 2023, one woman out of five in Campania was without a job, whereas the share of unemployed males was five percent less. The region with the highest percentage of employed individuals, both men and women, was Trentino-South Tyrol. Economic crisis in Italy Unemployment is a serious problem in Italy, which began to worsen alongside the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008. The crisis of the Italian labor market reached its peak in 2014, when 12.7 percent of the citizens were without a job. Since 2015, the situation has been improving; the unemployment rate started a steady decrease, which continued in the following years, reaching 7.6 percent in 2023.Unemployment in the EU In August 2023, Italy ranked fifth among the European Union member states with the highest unemployment rate. In Spain, more than eleven percent of all potential employees did not have any occupation.