Journey and Joy

Milan is the hub of a great network of railroads and highways that serve its industries and commerce. The city's industries are highly diversified and include such metalworking manufactures as aircraft, locomotives, and railroad equipment; automobiles, trucks, motorcycles, motor scooters, and bicycles; turbines and diesel engines; and agricultural machinery. The textile and clothing industries play a leading part in Milan's economy. Silk is still an important product of the region.   Italy's manufacture of chemicals, pharmaceuticals, plastics, and artificial fibers is centered in Milan. Leather, processed wood and paper, food, and rubber are all products of its factories. The publishing, graphics, and printing industries have deep roots in Milan.   The city is an active market center for the rich agricultural region that surrounds it. It also serves as a wholesale market in various products for both domestic and international trade. Its annual trade fa...

Originally a Celtic settlement, Milan or Mediolanum as it was known, was seized by Rome in 222 B.C. It became the seat of the vicar of Italy and the residence of the emperors of the west in the 4th century A.D. By the Edict of Milan (313), freedom of worship was granted all religious groups in the empire, including the Christians. Saint Ambrose was bishop of Milan from 373 or 374 to 397. The Ambrosian liturgy he developed is still used in the city.   Though destroyed by the Goths in 539, the city revived in the 9th century. By the 12th century it was a free commune. It was sacked by Frederick I Barbarossa in 1158 and 1162, but survived and contributed to the Lombard League cities' defeat of Frederick at Legnano in 1176. At the Peace of Constance (1183) the emperor recognized Milanese independence. In spite of internal strife between Guelphs and Ghibellines and struggles with neighboring cities, Milan continued to grow.   The Torriani, leaders of the popul...

At the center of the city is the Piazza del Duomo, on one side of which is Italy's greatest Gothic cathedral ( duomo ). The apse of this white marble cathedral was begun in 1386. The work was continued by French, German, and Italian master masons. Although it was consecrated by Saint Charles Borromeo, cardinal and archbishop of Milan, in 1577, it was not completed until the late 19th century. The facade, finished in 1805–1809, is one of the cathedral's least impressive features. The exterior is adorned with a profusion of spires, statues, and other ornaments. There are 135 marble spires and many marble statues. The highest spire is topped by a statue of the Madonna. The cathedral's majestic interior is somber. The five aisles in the nave are separated by tall pillars. An impressive 16th century mausoleum by Leoni is in the south transept. On the north side of the Piazza del Duomo is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, an arcade lined with cafes, restaurants, and sp...

Milan is a city and commune in the region of Lombardy in northern Italy. Milan (Italian, Milano ) is also the capital of Milan province and of Lombardy. It is the second most populous city in Italy and the country's industrial, commercial, and financial center. It lies in the fertile Po plain midway between the Po River and the Alpine foothills. The climate is continental, with cold winters and hot summers. Fog and rain are frequent in the fall and winter months. Milan's cathedral marks the center of Milan, just as the site of the cathedral once formed the center of the Roman city of Mediolanum. In the Middle Ages, Old Milan grew up around the cathedral site. In the 16th century the Spaniards extended the city beyond its medieval limits. In time Milan outgrew the walls built by the Spaniards. Today the city's residential and industrial suburbs form the outer limits of the metropolitan area.   Streets radiate from the center of the city out to these sub...

Sardinia lies in the Mediterranean Sea some 120 miles (190 km) southwest of central Italy. Though it is comparable in size to Sicily, its population is only about one third that of the other island. Geologically, Sardinia differs from the rest of Italy in that it consists mainly of ancient crystalline blocks rather than of folded sediments.   The most productive area is the Campidano rift valley, whose northern end (the area around Arborea) is irrigated from the Tirso River. The rest of this lowland is underdeveloped, but by the mid-1960s it was being improved with the aid of water diverted from the Flumendosa River.   With local exceptions, the remainder of the island is hilly or mountainous, and where it has not been abandoned to cork woodlands, scrub, or rough grazing, it is devoted to extensive wheat production, vines, and olives. Great progress has been made in taming the island's rivers (always a vital matter), and malaria, once a major scourge,...

The island of Sicily is divided from mainland Italy by the Strait of Messina, barely 2 miles (3 km) in width. Most of the island consists of hill country, where the land is planted to wheat or beans or left fallow. Sheep, much the most common species of animal in Mediterranean Italy, fit easily into this economy.   The Catania plain in eastern Sicily is overshadowed by the volcanic mass of Mt. Etna, more than 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) high. The plain is the island's largest lowland, but its satisfactory development has been thwarted by the erratic habits of its rivers. A mountainous belt in the north represents a continuation of the Apennines, with their diversity of rock types. Along the northern and eastern coasts there are a number of irrigated zones, particularly around the city of Palermo and around the base of Mt. Etna, where agriculture is highly intensive; tree crops, particularly oranges and lemons, are the specialty of these areas. The zone around Mars...

Italy may be divided into four basic geographic areas: the north, the peninsula (comprising central and southern Italy), the island of Sicily, and the island of Sardinia. It is hilly and mountainous country, with plains covering less than a quarter of its area.   The massive arc of the Alps, straddling Italy's frontier with its northern neighbors, sweeps around from the town of Savona located in the west to the Slovenian border in the east. The Alps shelter the northern plain, Italy's most extensive lowland, from the colder climates north of the Alps. The plain is blessed with long, warm summers and an abundant water supply from rainfall and rivers; it supports Italy's richest farmland and its heaviest concentration of industry.   Along the northwestern coast, in the region of Liguria, the Alps give way to the Apennine mountains, which curve southeastward to form the backbone of Italy's familiar boot-shaped peninsula. Except in Apulia, the ...

Overall, Italy ranks between the United Kingdom and Spain in per capita disposable income, but standards of living vary widely throughout the nation. In the northwest people are as prosperous as those in France: almost every family has an electric refrigerator and a television set, and electric washing machines are becoming common. By contrast, residents of the Basilicata and Sardinia are generally no better off than people in the Balkans.   Economic conditions vary even more among social classes than they do regionally, and redistribution of income through taxation and public services is much more limited in Italy than in northwestern Europe. According to one government survey, more than 10 million Italians are poor, lacking adequate food and shelter. Nevertheless, since World War II, Italy has made remarkable progress; indeed, despite limited resources, it has perhaps made greater gains in these years than either the advanced capitalist nations or the collect...

Although the increasing social mobility—from village to city, from south to north, as well as the more complex movement up and down the social ladder—is steadily changing the Italian nation, class differences remain sharp. In Italy social classes are rooted not so much in economic activity as in education and family traditions. Class prejudices pose serious problems for a country that is trying to become modern and democratized, but expanded opportunities for education and the acquisition of new skills should help to lay the basis for a more open society.   Of Italy's 15 million families, about a million belong to the "governing class. " Within this category the largest, most dynamic group is the intelligentsia: the middle-class intellectuals, lawyers, doctors, scientists, and clergy. Alongside them stand two smaller groups: an upper middle class of successful businesspeople, and an aristocracy of wealthy landowners, descendants of those who formerly ...

The population of Italy in 2006 was 58,133,509, an increase of about 12 million since 1951 and of 26.5 million since 1901. As younger people became more urbanized and literate, the national birthrate dropped sharply. In 2006 it was only 9 per 1,000 persons, compared with 19.2 in 1965, 24.9 in 1931, and 31.4 in 1911. The death rate has also fallen sharply, from 30.3 per 1,000 in 1861 to 10 in 2006. There were more deaths than births in the industrial northwest by 1979, and nationwide by 1993. Average life expectancy in the early 2000s was 77 years for males and 83 for females. Women outnumbered men by about 1.8 million. In 2006 the average density of population was 499 per square mile (193 per sq km), a very high figure if one considers the mountainous terrain of much of Italy. The greatest density is found in the "industrial triangle" bounded by Milan, Turin, and Genoa. One-third of Italy's population is concentrated in ...

Modern Italy is preeminently a land of cities. Unlike neighboring France, Italy possesses many urban cultural centers, especially in the north and center. The south has not partaken fully of this predominantly urban culture, though Sicily contains several large cities. On the mainland, Bari is the next largest southern city after Naples. Formerly, many "cities" in the interior of the south were little more than peasant slums, populated by farmworkers who had to travel many miles each day to cultivate their scattered strips of land.   Most Italian city-dwellers live in large apartment houses. Some of the upper middle class have vacation homes. Despite much construction since World War II, serious shortages of low-priced modern accommodations remain. In much of Italy, construction is of masonry or cement. Many southern villages are perched picturesquely on hilltops, partly to escape the malaria that used to be prevalent in the lowlands. In the rural south i...

Overall, some 81% of Italian citizens are Roman Catholic. About 97% of native-born Italians are Catholics by baptism, but only one-third of them attend Mass regularly. The Roman Catholic Church exerts more influence among women and children than among men, more in the rural zones than in the cities, and more in the south than in the north, with the possible exception of the region of Venetia. About 400,000 Italians are Jehovah's Witnesses. Of the non–Roman Catholic Christians, Protestants make up the largest group, numbering some 100,000. Nearly one-third of these are Waldenses, living mainly in the Alpine valleys west of Turin. Others, such as Baptists and Methodists, live chiefly in Rome and in the larger industrial cities of the north. Members of the Greek Orthodox Church live mainly in the south.   Muslims now constitute a significant religious minority in Italy, owing largely to an influx of immigrants from Albania, North Africa, East Asia, and South Asia. The Musl...

The Italian language is spoken by some 94% of the population. After 1945, when the northeastern border areas that had been annexed to Italy after World War I reverted to Yugoslavia, ethnic minorities accounted for less than 5% of the total population. Of these traditional linguistic minorities, half were members of German-speaking communities concentrated in the Alto Adige (South Tyrol) and northeastern frontier, a quarter were members of French-speaking communities in Aosta and other northwestern valleys, and the remaining quarter were mostly Albanians and Greeks scattered through the southern provinces. A very small number of Slovene-speaking people continued to live in the northeastern Friuli-Venezia Giulia region. Over the 1990s, however, immigration—legal and illegal—increased dramatically, much of it from Africa and Asia. Italy's linguistic demography diversified accordingly.   Italian belongs to the Romance group of the Indo-European languages. Based ch...

Culture and tradition rather than physical characteristics have given the Italians their sense of unity. Prior to the Roman era a commingling of peoples inhabited the Italian mainland. Of these, the Etruscans, who established a kingdom in west-central Italy between the Arno and Tiber rivers, were technologically the most developed. A variety of Italic peoples dwelt in other parts of the country. The Greeks first colonized southern Italy and Sicily during the 8th and 7th centuries B.C.   Eventually the Roman state not only absorbed these people but imported slaves from throughout the empire. After the fall of Rome, new invasions brought in Germanic Ostrogoths and Lombards as well as some Slavs. Saracens and Normans invaded Sicily and the south. It does not appear, however, that these incursions did much to change the physical appearance of the Italici.   The Mediterranean physical type predominates in the southern third of the country and in the islands. ...

Jutting into the Mediterranean midway between Gibraltar and Suez, Italy occupies a strategic position. Historically, its enviable location has been a major reason for its commercial, political, cultural, and religious importance. Following World War II, Italy participated in the collaborative and integrative experiments of the period, joining the United Nations, NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), and the European Economic Community (later, the European Union). It also has friendly relations with Africa and the Middle East.   Italian politics has long been marked by a combination of instability and continuity. Coalition governments have formed and fallen with frequency, yet the same leaders return to power time and again. Roman Catholic-dominated coalitions prevailed in national politics throughout the Cold War. At the same time, Italy's unorthodox Communist Party (and its successors) was deeply involved in local government but was shut out of national govern...

Historically, the study of centrography began in the 1870s with the work of Julius E. Hilgard and the U. S. Bureau of the Census. Around the turn of the century, the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleyev (or Mendeleev) began investigations of the center of gravity of the population of Russia. The Mendeleyev Centrographical Laboratory was formed in Leningrad in 1925 by several of his compatriots who had become interested in his studies.   The study of centrography as a distinct field reached its peak in the 1920s and 1930s. During this period there was an international race, which was led by centrographers in the United States, the Soviet Union, and Italy, to see who could compute and analyze the greatest number of centers of all kinds. But by the late 1930s the study of centrography had fallen into disfavor, partially because it could not live up to the absurd claims made for it by some of its proponents, in particular those in the Soviet Union.   A re...

Although there are many different types of centers, only two are widely used. These are the so-called center of gravity, which is used mostly for the analysis of the movement of a population over a period of time, and the median center, which is used primarily for planning the location of future facilities.   Center of Gravity The geographical concept of center of gravity is derived from the concept of the same name used by physicists to denote the balancing point of a material body. The U. S. Bureau of the Census first applied this concept to human populations in the first Statistical Atlas of the United States in 1874, and in every subsequent major census bureau publication. The definition of the center of population used by the census bureau is "that point upon which the United States would balance if it were a rigid plane, without weight, with the population distributed thereon with each individual having equal weight. " An alternative definition of t...

Phnom Penh is the capital of and largest city in Cambodia. It extends along the Bassac and Tonle Sap rivers at their junction with the Mekong. The old city surrounds the former royal palace complex, which contains a pagoda noted for its floor of silver tiles. To the north is the commercial district, and farther north is the modern residential area. Phnom Penh is Cambodia's main river port and the hub of national road, rail, and air traffic.   Soon after 1444, because of civil war stimulated by Thai invaders, the Cambodians abandoned Angkor and established a new capital at Phnom Penh. The city became the permanent seat of government in 1867. In the 20th century it prospered on trade in rice, fish, maize, cotton, and pepper. Although artisan industries, such as gold and silver working, remained important, the city acquired small-scale industries. Nearly half the population was Chinese or Vietnamese.   Phnom Penh was a center of learning and art. It had a sec...

Angkor, an ancient city, now in ruins, situated just north of the western end of the Tonle Sap (Great Lake) in Cambodia. For six centuries it was the center of the Khmer empire. Its principal monuments are the temple complex of Angkor Wat, the Bayon temple in Angkor Thom, and the city walls and gates.   The site first became a settlement in 819 A.D. under the founder of the empire, King Jayavarman II (reigned 802–850). The first city at the exact location of Angkor was Yasoharapura, built almost a century later by King Yasovarman I (reigned 889–900). It became the center of an extensive system of agricultural facilities, including reservoirs, dikes, and irrigation channels, all traversed by elevated roadways. As rebuilt by King Rajendravarman II (reigned 944–968), Angkor included the terraced Phnom Bakeng (one of the lesser monuments) and smaller temples.   The Vishnu temple of Angkor Wat, one of the architectural masterpieces of all time, was constru...

Mekong River is one of the longest rivers in Asia. The Mekong rises from its source, the Rup-sa Pass on the Tibetan Plateau, and flows generally southeast for 2,600 miles (4,180 km), emptying into the South China Sea through a large delta. The river has a relatively small drainage area of 300,000 square miles (777,000 sq km), more than 75% of which lies in Southeast Asia. In 1995 French explorer Michel Peissel discovered the source of the Mekong River at a high mountain pass.   The Mekong's first 1,150 miles (1,850 km) are in China, where the river flows in a narrow valley with deep gorges, in part parallel and close to the upper Yangtze and Salween. After forming the Laos-Myanmar (Burma) border and descending from the mountains of northern Laos near Vientiane, the river crosses the eastern Korat plateau between Laos and Thailand. Below Khone Falls, where the Mekong enters Cambodia, alluvial plains extend on both sides. During the summer flood, some of the wa...