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.

This statistic shows the ten largest cities in Italy in 2024. In 2024, 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.

Naples is the Italian city with the highest population density. As of 2024, the largest south Italian city counts 7,800 inhabitants per square kilometer. Milan followed with 7,600 residents per square kilometer, whereas Rome, the largest Italian city, registered a population density of only 2,100 people, 5,700 inhabitants per square kilometer less than Naples.

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.

Rome is the largest Italian metropolitan area. As of 2024, the urban area of the capital city has a population of around 4.23 million people. Milan and Naples follow with 3.25 million and 2.97 million people, respectively. In terms of inhabitants per square kilometer, Naples, located in the south, has the highest population density. Rome, Milan, and Naples are also Italy's largest cities.

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 foreign residents in Italy was over five million people. In 2023, Rome and Milan were the cities with the largest presence of immigrant population, followed by Turin, Naples, and Florence.

This statistic illustrates the top ten Italian towns with the highest percentage change in foreign population size in the period from 2012 to 2016. According to the study results, the town with the highest increase in the number of immigrants was Crotone (175 percent increase). The foreign population size more than doubled also in Marsala and Giugliano in Campania (149 and 126 percent increase, respectively).

In 1500, the largest city was Paris, with an estimated 225 thousand inhabitants, almost double the population of the second-largest city, Naples. As in 1330, Venice and Milan remain the third and fourth largest cities in Western Europe, however Genoa's population almost halved from 1330 until 1500, as it was struck heavily by the bubonic plague in the mid-1300s. In lists prior to this, the largest cities were generally in Spain and Italy, however, as time progressed, the largest populations could be found more often in Italy and France. The year 1500 is around the beginning of what we now consider modern history, a time that saw the birth of many European empires and inter-continental globalization.

This statistic illustrates the leading ten Italian cities with the highest proportion of foreign-born residents as of 2016. According to the study results, the town with the largest proportion of foreigners was Milan, where almost one in five residents (19 percent) came from abroad. The size of the foreign population as a share of the total number of residents was 18.6 percent in Brescia and 18.2 percent in Prato.

It is estimated that the largest cities in Western Europe in 1330 were Paris and Granada. At this time, Paris was the seat of power in northern France, while Granada had become the largest multicultural city in southern Spain, controlled by the Muslim, Nasrid Kingdom during Spain's Reconquista period. The next three largest cities were Venice, Genoa and Milan, all in northern Italy, renowned as important trading cities during the middle ages. In October 1347, the first wave of the Black Death had arrived in Sicily and then began spreading throughout Europe, decimating the population.

It is estimated that the cities of Cordova (modern-day Córdoba) and Palermo were the largest cities in Europe in 1050, and had between fifteen and twenty times the population of most other entries in this graph, Despite this the cities of Cordova (the capital city of the Umayyad caliphate, who controlled much of the Iberian peninsula from the seventh to eleventh centuries), and Palermo (another Arab-controlled capital in Southern Europe) were still the only cities in Western Europe with a population over one hundred thousand people, closely followed by Seville. It is also noteworthy to point out that the five largest cities on this list were importing trading cities, in modern day Spain or Italy, although the largest cities become more northern and western European in later lists (1200, 1330, 1500, 1650 and 1800). In 1050, todays largest Western European cities, London and Paris, had just twenty-five and twenty thousand inhabitants respectively.

The period of European history (and much of world history) between 500 and 1500 is today known as the 'Dark Ages'. Although the term 'Dark Ages' was originally applied to the lack of literature and arts, it has since been applied to the lack or scarcity of recorded information from this time. Because of these limitations, much information about this time is still being debated today.

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 five percent. Italian demographics In 2024, beyond five million foreign residents lived in Italy, compared to the total population of 59 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 53.6 years by 2050, whereas the country experienced a constant decline in the number of births. In 2010, almost 550,000 babies came into life, but ten years later only 400,000 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 four percent, whereas in the south it reached 14 percent.

In 2024, the municipality of Venice collects 30 percent of the total population of the community. This causes an evident disproportion in the distribution of the citizens between the main urban area and the smaller peripheral centers. In fact, the inhabitants of Chioggia, the second-largest municipality, represented only six percent compared to the 835,405 residents of the metropolitan area. The city is often called the “Little Venice”, as its historical center is located in the Venetian lagoon and built on several small islands. San Donà di Piave and Mira host around 40,000 inhabitants, while other municipalities are well below 30,000 residents. Hence, the majority of the metropolitan city consists of middle- and small-sized towns.

The largest Western European city in 1200 was Palermo, with 150 thousand inhabitants. This is a great decrease in the number 150 years previously, where the population was 350 thousand. The city of Cordova also decreased by almost 400 thousand in this time, possibly because of the declining Arabian control and influence in the area. Seville is the third largest city on this list, although it's overall population decreased by ten thousand since 1050. The largest cities are generally in Spain or Italy, although the second largest city on this list is Paris, with 110 thousand inhabitants. In the lists that follow, Paris remains at the top as either the largest (1500 and 1650) or second largest (1330 and 1800) city in Western Europe.

Between 1500 and 1800, London grew to be the largest city in Western Europe, with its population growing almost 22 times larger in this period. London would eventually overtake Constantinople as Europe's largest in the 1700s, before becoming the largest city in the world (ahead of Beijing) in the early-1800s.

The most populous cities in this period were the capitals of European empires, with Paris, Amsterdam, and Vienna growing to become the largest cities, alongside the likes of Lisbon and Madrid in Iberia, and Naples or Venice in Italy. Many of northwestern Europe's largest cities in 1500 would eventually be overtaken by others not shown here, such as the port cities of Hamburg, Marseilles or Rotterdam, or more industrial cities such as Berlin, Birmingham, and Munich.

In 2024, the capital of Italy, Rome, maintained its position as the most populous city of the Italian peninsula. Over the last decade, the number of the Eternal City’s inhabitants has been growing, from about 2.6 million residents in 2012 to over 2.8 million individuals registered in 2020. From 2021, however, its population slightly dropped, reaching 2.75 million in 2024. Lazio, the region on the Tyrrhenian SeaRome is located in the region of Lazio. This central region, which in the west borders on the Tyrrhenian Sea, is the second-largest Italian region in terms of population, after Lombardy and before Campania. Expensive life in the Italian capital Despite being one of the most affordable European capitals in terms of average monthly rent, Rome occupies the second place on the Italian podium of cities with the highest dwelling rental prices. In 2019, an average monthly rent for a single room amounted to 448 euros, whereas the average monthly price in 2020 of a double room estimated at 287 euro per person, without utilities.

A May 2024 study analyzed the small towns in Italy with a population of under five thousand with the highest average monthly number of Google searches in 2023. Based on the analysis, two Sicilian destinations, Favignana and San Vito Lo Capo, recorded the highest figure, each with an average of 91,890 monthly Google searches in 2023. Portofino in Liguria followed in the ranking, with 91,330 monthly Google searches on average that year.

Rome, Milan, and Naples are Italy's major urban areas, respectively in the Center, North, and South of the country. In 2021, Rome had an urban area of about 4.3 million people, followed by Milan with 3.1 million and Naples with 2.2 million. In terms of population density, however, Naples is the most densely populated Italian city.

In 2020, the North Italian city of Cuneo was the city with the largest number of trees every 100 inhabitants. The city had 190 plants per 100 residents, whereas in Modena, in Emilia-Romagna, there were 115 trees per 100 population. Moreover, in Trieste, in the North-East of the country, there were 102 plants per every 100 people.