Italy (geographical region)
Geographically, Italy running in north-west to south-east direction can be divided into the calcareous Alps, the alluvial plain, the Northern, Central and Southern Apennines and Sicily.
[5] The natural limits of the Italian region, marked by the Alpine drainage divide and the sea, are relatively clear, except at the western and eastern extremities of the Alps.
On the eastern borders, the chain of the Julian Alps and the Kvarner Gulf are traditionally indicated, to which Dante Alighieri also refers.
[3] Therefore, to the east, despite the more depressed character of the orography and the scarcity of surface hydrography found in the region south of the Nauporto pass near Postumia, the continuity of the mountain bulwark is ensured by the reliefs placed between Mount Pomario and Mount Nevoso, its terminal pillar, where it reaches the Kvarner Gulf and the Bay of Buccari, immediately south-east of Fiume.
To the south-east of the Nauporto pass and to the north-west of Mount Pomario, the traceability of the natural border is rather difficult as in this area the hydrographic watershed does not coincide with the orographic chain, which is characterized by rather small peaks.
In particular, they are included in the Italian geographical region as these islands are the natural continuation of Istria, being closer to the Istrian coasts than to the Dalmatian ones.
[2][3] On the contrary, to the west, the boundary is unchallenged and easily definable between the canton of Valais, Savoy, Aosta Valley and Piedmont, near the coast can be represented by that buttress of the Maritime Alps which, detaching itself from the Po-French drainage divide in correspondence with Monte Clapier, follows the Authion Massif, which culminates in Mont Bégo, and divides the Roia basin to the east from the Varo and Paglione basins to the west.
[notes 4] However, there is an opposite thesis, supported by Charles de Gaulle at the end of World War II,[8] which, assigning the nature of a transalpine pass to Colle di Tenda, excludes the entire Roia Valley with Ventimiglia from the Italian physical region.
Most of them are made up of the water catchment areas of the Po, Adige, Brenta, Piave, Tagliamento and Isonzo rivers.
The remaining portion (23 000 km2) is divided between several other states, some of which (in order of geographical extension: Malta, San Marino, Monaco, and Vatican City) are entirely included in the political borders.
In addition, starting from the 12th century, Northern Italy itself found itself divided into a myriad of small states often in conflict with each other or victims of foreign expansionist aims.
However, in the 14th century, Dante Alighieri wrote in the Divine Comedy (L'Inferno, Canto IX, 114): As in Pola, near del Carnaro, where Italy closes and its terms wet.Similarly, Francesco Petrarca wrote at the same time in his work the Il Canzoniere (s. CXLVI, 13–14): that fair country, the Apennines divide, and Alps and sea surround.In his memoirs written during his captivity on the island of Saint Helena, but published only in 2010, Napoleon Bonaparte makes a description of Italy in the first chapter:[13] Italy is surrounded by the Alps and the sea, its natural limits are determined with the same precision as if it were an island.
After World War II, Italy lost a large part of Julian March, and Italian geography eliminated all political and nationalistic aspects to focus only on geographic ones.
