Establishing a Company in Italy

Located in southern Europe, Italy consists of the boot-like Apennine peninsula ("the Italian boot") and more than twenty islands, the largest of which are Sicily and Sardinia. The Apennine Mountains run almost the entire length of Italy, while the country’s fertile hills and valleys the mountain range on both sides. To the north, the Apennines merge with the Alps, forming the country’s northern border and standing as a natural partition between Italy and its Central European neighbors - France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia.

Nestled at the feet of the Italian Alps, are the country’s world renown great lakes, including Como, Garda, Maggiore, and Lugano, which are fed from melting snow and alpine glaciers.

In addition to its neighbors outside its borders, Italy is home to two fully independent nation-state enclaves - Vatican City in the center of the country, at the very heart of Italy’s ancient capital city, Rome, and the microstate of San Marino, located in the northeastern part of the country, not far from the coastal city of Rimini.

For approximately two thousand years, Italy was divided into city-states and principalities, ruled by a long line of different regents throughout the millennia. Only in the 19^th century, with the spread of nationalism across Europe, was Italy united into a single country.

Over the course of its history, alongside the political upheavals, Italy also underwent dramatic cultural changes, the most prominent of which is the Renaissance. Reaching its peak in the 15^th and 16^th centuries, the Renaissance, and its undying icons, made Italy the cultural and artistic center of all of Europe.

Today, Italy is an important member in a list of European and international organizations, including the European Union (Italy is a founding member of the EU), NATO, the OECD, the World Trade Organization, and others. It the capacity of these memberships, Italy is an integral part of the intensifying movement to politically and economically unify Western Europe, which includes adopting the Euro in 1999.