The Italian people are a Southern European ethnic group located primarily in Italy, Switzerland, France 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, and historically Italian dialects and other regional languages.

There are almost 59 million autochthonous Italians in Italy, about 750,000 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 Uruguay (Italian Uruguayans),Brazil (Italian Brazilians), Argentina (Italian Argentine), the United States (Italian Americans), Venezuela (Italo-Venezuelans), Canada (Italian Canadians), Australia (Italian Australians), Peru (Italian Peruvians), and throughout Europe—mainly in Belgium, United Kingdom (Italian-Scots/Britalian), France and Germany (Italo-Germans).

Origins of Italian people

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 lesser degree in the south. The Germanic tribes underwent rapid Romanization.

The Byzantine Greeks were an important power in southern Italy for five centuries, fighting for supremacy first against the Ostrogoths and later against the Lombards of Benevento. Greek speakers were fairly common in Calabria and Apulia until the 11th century when their rule ended: a few small Greek-speaking communities still exist in southern Italy and Sicily.

In 827 AD, the island of Sicily was invaded starting the period of Arab and North African influence in Sicily and Apulia, especially Bari. Arabs controlled Sicily until the Norman Christians conquered much of southern Italy and all of Sicily in 1091 AD, and began expelling them.1

There are also still small Greek fishing villages in Calabria, Maltese-Italian residents whose family originated from Malta under Italian and then British rule from the 18th to the mid 20th centuries, and Catalan communities in Sardinia to this day.