Italy has 59 million people, and the number is already falling

Italy is home to just over 59 million people in 2026, the fifth-largest population in Europe after Russia, Germany, the United Kingdom and France¹. Unlike most countries its size, it is already shrinking. By the UN’s count it peaked around 2014 at about 60.7 million and has lost people almost every year since¹.

The UN’s medium projection has that fall continuing to 52.1 million by 2050, about 7 million fewer people than today. On the world list Italy would slip from 25th to around 40th¹.

Nearly two deaths for every birth

The decline comes down to a simple imbalance. In 2025 Italy recorded about 355,000 births and 652,000 deaths, so the country lost roughly 296,000 people before anyone moved in or out².

Behind that sits one of the lowest birth rates in the world. Women in Italy had 1.14 children on average in 2025, down from 1.18 the year before and below the previous record low of 1.19, set in 1995². A population needs about 2.1 children per woman to hold its size without migration, and Italy hasn’t been near that line in decades. Even the most fertile region, Trentino-Alto Adige, managed only 1.40. Sardinia was at 0.85².

Low fertility also tends to feed on itself. Each generation of would-be parents is smaller than the one before it, so even if the rate stopped falling tomorrow, the number of babies would likely keep shrinking for years.

Immigration cancelled out the loss, for one year

In 2025 Italy gained about 296,000 people through migration, roughly 440,000 arrivals against 144,000 departures². That matched the natural decrease almost person for person, so the number of residents barely moved. ISTAT, the national statistics office, counted 58,942,828 people on 1 January 2026, within a fraction of a percent of the UN’s figure².

Whether that keeps up decides where Italy lands in 2050. The UN’s projection assumes net migration of only about 58,000 to 75,000 a year¹, which is how it gets to 52.1 million. ISTAT’s own median projection carries the recent, much higher migration forward and lands near 55.0 million, with a likely range of 53 to 57 million³. Either way the population falls. The open question is whether by 4 million people or by 7.

One in four Italians is 65 or older

Italy’s median age is 48.6 years, second only to Japan¹. A quarter of residents, 14.8 million people, are already 65 or over, which by ISTAT’s reckoning makes Italy the oldest country in the European Union².

Part of that is good news: Italians live long lives, 81.7 years on average for men and 85.7 for women². But long lives combined with so few births tilt the whole population upward. Migration can top up the headcount, as it did in 2025. It does far less for the age structure, which keeps getting older year after year.

The Po Valley grows Italy’s food and traps its smog

The broad plain of the Po River, walled in by the Alps to the north and the Apennines to the south, grows about 40% of Italy’s food⁴. It depends on the river, and the river is running lower. In 2022 its flow at the outlet was the lowest in a 216-year record, a full 30% below the next-worst year, and six of the ten worst droughts since 1807 have come after 2000⁴.

Those dry summers are part of the same global temperature rise felt everywhere else. The mountains that feed the river cause a second problem in winter: they box the plain in, and fine-particle pollution settles over it instead of blowing away⁵. Premature deaths linked to that kind of pollution fell about 32% in Italy between 2005 and 2022, a real improvement, though the country is still behind the EU average⁶. So the place that feeds Italy is also where both its water and its air are under pressure.

What 59 million Italians draw from the planet

If everyone lived like the average person in Italy, humanity would need 2.73 Earths⁸. And very little of that comes from Italy itself. Each Italian uses about 4.09 global hectares of productive land and sea a year, while the country’s own land renews only 0.98 hectares per person, roughly a quarter of what is used⁸.

More than half of the footprint is carbon, 1.54 Earths’ worth. That is the forest area it would take to soak up the carbon dioxide from the gas and oil Italy burns for power, heating, transport and industry. Cropland comes next at 0.49 Earths, the farmland, at home and abroad, needed to grow what Italians eat⁸.

Renewables now cover two-fifths of Italy’s electricity

There’s real movement on that biggest driver. Renewables met 41.2% of Italy’s electricity demand in 2024, up from 37.1% the year before and the first time the share has passed 40%⁷. Electricity is only one part of the carbon slice, alongside heating, transport and industry, so a cleaner grid alone won’t close the gap, but it shows the largest part of Italy’s footprint is already moving.

A smaller, older Italy by 2050

Every projection points the same way: fewer Italians, and older ones. Somewhere between the UN’s 52 million and ISTAT’s 55 million is the likely range for 2050, with migration deciding where in that range the country lands.

A smaller population would, on its own, trim Italy’s total demand on the planet, roughly in step with the 12% fall in people the UN projects. But the per-person footprint is what makes Italy a 2.73-Earth country, and that depends far more on how fast the energy shift spreads beyond electricity than on how many babies are born.