Rome (/rom/; Italian: Roma pronounced [roma] ( listen); Latin: Rma) is a city and

special comune (named "Roma Capitale") inItaly. Rome is the capital of Italy and also of
the Province of Rome and of the region of Lazio. With 2.9 million residents in
1,285.3 km
2
(496.3 sq mi), it is also the country's largest and most
populated comune and fourth-most populous city in the European Union by population
within city limits. The urban area of Rome extends beyond the administrative city limits with
a population of around 3.8 million.
[2]
Between 3.2 and 4.2 million people live in Rome
metropolitan area.
[3][4][5][6][7]
The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian
Peninsula, within Lazio (Latium), along the shores of Tiber river. Vatican City is an
independent country within the city boundaries of Rome, the only existing example of a
country within a city: for this reason Rome has been often defined as capital of two
states.
[8][9]

Rome's history spans more than two and a half thousand years, since its legendary founding
in 753 BC. Rome is one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in Europe. It is referred to
as "The Eternal City" (Latin: Roma Aeterna), a central notion in ancient Roman culture.
[10]
In
the ancient world it was successively the capital city of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman
Republic and theRoman Empire, and is regarded as one of the birthplaces of Western
civilization. Since the 1st century AD, Rome has been considered the seat of the Papacy and
in the 8th century it became the capital of the Papal States, which lasted until 1870. In 1871
Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic.
After the Middle Ages, Rome was ruled by popes such as Alexander VI and Leo X, who
transformed the city into one of the major centers of the Italian Renaissance along
with Florence.
[11]
The current version of St Peter's Basilica was built and the Sistine
Chapel was painted by Michelangelo. Famous artists and architects, such
as Bramante, Bernini and Raphael, resided for some time in Rome, contributing to
its Renaissance and Baroque architecture.
Rome has a status of the global city.
[12][13][14]
In 2007, Rome was the 11th-most-visited city in
the world, 3rd most visited in theEuropean Union, and the most popular tourist attraction in
Italy.
[15][16]
Its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
[17]
Monuments
and museums such as the Vatican Museums and the Colosseum are among the world's most
visited tourist destinations with both locations receiving millions of tourists a year. Rome
hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics and is the seat of United Nations' Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO).