|region9 = |pop9 = 380,000 |ref9 = |region10 = |pop10 = 291,200 |ref10 = |region11 = |pop11 = 290,000 |ref11 = |region12 = flag: Chile |pop12 = 150,000 |ref12 = |region13 = flag: United Kingdom |pop13 = 133,500 |ref13 = |region14 = flag: Spain |pop14 = 153,700 |ref14 = |region15 = flag: Mexico |pop15 = 50,000 |ref15 = |region16 = flag: South Africa |pop16 = 35,000 |region17 = flag: Croatia |pop17 = 19,636 |ref17 = |region18 = |pop18 = 15,000 |ref18 = |region19 = flag: Monaco |pop19 = 10,000 |ref19 = |region20= flag: Ireland |pop20 = 5,811 |ref20 = |region21= flag: Lebanon |pop21 = 4,300 |ref21 = |region21= flag: Romania |pop21 = 3,331 |ref21 = |languages = Italian and Italian dialects
(Sicilian Southern Italian languages Corsican Sardinian Northern Italian languages Friulian) |religions = Roman Catholic (predominantly), others |footnotes = Italians by birth, not including an indeterminable number of Frenchmen of Italian ancestry because ancestry wasn't surveyed in the official 1999 census.

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The Italian people are a Southern European ethnic group located primarily in Italy and, by virtue of a wide-ranging diaspora, throughout Western Europe, the Americas and Australia. They are one of the Latin European peoples and their native language is Italian, historically Italian dialects and other regional languages.

There are almost 60 million Italians in Italy, about 290,000 in Switzerland, and about 28,000 in San Marino. There is also a large but undefined, autochthonous population in France (Nice, Corsica). Smaller groups can also be found in Slovenia and Croatia, primarily Istria. There are notable populations of Italian descent in Brazil (Italian Brazilian), Argentina (Italian Argentine), the United States (Italian American), Uruguay (Italian Uruguayan), Venezuela (Italo-Venezuelans), Canada (Italian Canadian), Australia (Italian Australian), Peru (Italian Peruvian), Chile (Italian-Chilean), and throughout Europe—mainly in Spain, Belgium, United Kingdom (Italian-Scots/Welsh Italians), France and Germany (Italo-Germans).

History

The Italian people have somewhat varied European origins apart from the original Ancient Italic peoples: Northern Italy had a strong Celtic presence in Cisalpine Gaul until the Romans conquered and colonised the area in the 2nd century; the central portion of the Italian peninsula was inhabited by the Etruscans and Italic people; and southern Italy and Sicily was settled significantly by Greeks (see Magna Graecia).

The Romans romanized the entire peninsula and preserved common unity until the 5th century AD. After the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West in 476 AD, the Italian peninsula was invaded by Germanic peoples crossing the Alps, establishing settlements in north-central Italy and to a much lesser degree in the south. The Germanic tribes underwent rapid Romanization.