Today Italy has a population of approximately 58.9 million inhabitantsdistributed over an area of 302.073 km² divided into over 100 provinces and metropolitan cities: but what are they? the most populous?
According to the latest data released byISTAT and relating to 1 January 2026, the capital is confirmed in first place Rome with over 4.2 million residents, followed by Milan And Napleswhich alone collect approximately 6.3 million of people. From a geographical point of view, the ranking is rather balanced between North and South: overall, the 10 provinces (or metropolitan cities) with the most inhabitants host over 19.5 million residentsequal to approximately one third of the entire national population.
So let’s see the complete ranking and what the latest ISTAT data say aboutdemographic trend of the country.
The ranking of the 10 provinces/metropolitan cities with the most inhabitants in Italy
According to the latest data released by ISTAT, as of 1 January 2026 the 10 most populous Italian provinces are:
- Rome4,224,901 residents
- Milan3,253,111 residents
- Naples2,954,847 residents
- Turin, 2,204,779 residents
- Brescia1,271,759 residents
- Bari1,218,073 residents
- Palermo1,195,307 residents
- Bergamo1,119,233 residents
- Catania1,067,550 residents
- Salerno1,053,302 residents
One fact that is immediately striking is the detachment among the first three provinces and all the others: Rome, Milan and Naples alone collect more 10.4 million peoplea number equal to approximately 17.7% of the entire national population. Naplesamong other things, is the province with the highest population density in Italy: approximately 2,519 inhabitants per km².
From the point of view of geographical distribution, however, the picture that emerges is rather uniform: of the 10 most populous provinces, 4 are located in the North (Milan, Turin, Brescia and Bergamo, all concentrated between Lombardy, in fact the most populous region in Italy, and Piedmont) and 5 are located in the South, that is, the South and the Islands (Naples, Bari and Salerno, Palermo and Catania). The Central Italyhowever, is represented exclusively by the capital Rome.
How the Italian population is changing
But what is Italy’s demographic trend? According to the last one ISTAT demographic balanceas of 1 January 2026 the total resident population amounts to 58,942,828 inhabitantsslightly decreasing compared to 1 January 2025, when the Institute registered 58,943,464 inhabitants.
In general, however, in recent years our country has been experiencing a persistent decline in births: again according to ISTAT data, in 2025 approximately 355,000 childrena figure that marks a decrease of 15,000 births (-3.9%) compared to 2024, a year which had already marked a negative record. During the same period of time, however, there were approximately 651,830therefore actually higher in absolute value than births, thus determining a largely negative natural balance.
Partially compensating for this imbalance were the migratory flows: considering the total share of immigrants from abroad in 2025 (439,916) and emigrants abroad (144,157), last year the net migration with foreign countries was 295,759 people.
In any case, the underlying trend remains quite clear: Italy is affected by a progressive demographic decline. According to ISTAT forecasts, the resident population could drop to 54.7 million by 2050with an acceleration of this decline especially between 2030 and 2050.
