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This is Italy, or, more specifically, the Italian peninsula.

Like all civilizations in the rial game of sieve, i R L.

Italy has been defined by her geographic reality and starting place.

At first glance, Italy's position seems strong and easy to defend.

She is surrounded by water on three sides in the west, south and east, which leaves only the North to defend against land attacks.

From Luckily, however, the North is also easily protected and defensible by the Alps, which are a bunch of really, really big mountains.

Italy's geographic armor is amongst the strongest of any country in the world because she has full complete 360 degree coverage.

But there is a downside to what looks like nothing but upsides.

Italy's geography stats have relatively recently been nerve compared to how good they used to be in Italy today, in the late game just isn't as powerful as it used to be.

Back in the early game.

And here's how the world's first civilizations that spawned into the world map began around here around 6000 years ago in Mesopotamia, followed up quickly by several more across the Mediterranean, like Egypt, the Greek states, Carthage and, eventually, a tiny little town called Rome.

Now the civilizations that started around the Mediterranean, we're still in the early game of world discovery, so most of the world's geography was still shrouded in unknown to any of them.

Travel and mapping off lands was difficult, but it was least difficult across the Mediterranean Sea because map makers could just sail around it and across it and draw out what it looked like on most maps of the known world at the time.

Therefore, the Mediterranean was often at the center, or at least the most prominent feature.

Take a look at this early world map created by the Greeks in the sixth century BC or this map created by the Greeks in the fifth century BC and this map created by the Greeks after the conquest of Alexander the Great.

Each iteration shows a slight evolution in the understanding of the region's geography, but each one is highly concentrated around the Mediterranean Sea because that's what civilizations here at the time were familiar with.

So if you wanted to dominate the Mediterranean region and the rest of the early civilizations and their populations that surrounded it, what geographic feature do you think would be the most important for you to control?

It would be the Italian peninsula in the center of it all, with long coastlines that can provide your civilizations ships equally easy access to both the western and eastern halves of it.

If fully controlled under a single power, Italy can be used as a springboard to dominate and rule the entire Mediterranean Sea, from which at the time was basically the entire known world to the civilizations that existed there.

And the first civilization that accomplished that was Rome, who carved out an enormous empire across the region from the nucleus in Italy.

Rome's power, wealth and success brought about an explosion in the population of Italy, to the point where Italy alone was home to 6.5% of the entire human species, while the empire and large was home to a whopping 30% of humanity.

For the people who lived in the ancient civilizations around the Mediterranean Sea, Italy was basically at the center of the known world, and in terms of population, Italy literally was at the administrative center for almost one out of every three living humans.

But Italy's enormous wealth and strategic location has encouraged ambitious external invaders for thousands of years Carthaginians, Germanic tribes, Huns, Mawr, Germanic tribes that caused the empire to collapse.

Byzantines, Arabs and, eventually the Spanish, Austrian and French empires.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Italy splintered into dozens of independent city states that largely followed clear geographic lines across the peninsula.

Italy's interior is extremely mountainous, with the Apennines stretching down the length of the spine.

And this provided enough separation between regions for strong regional identities in the peninsula to crop up over time after the collapse of the empire and any strong centralized authority that went with it.

So after Byzantine Italy collapsed, the peninsula would remain divided between the city states and external empires for over a 1000 years before the pieces started coming back together again in the 19th century.

But by then Italy's geographic situation and reality has severely deteriorated, first of all, population, Italy's population today in 2020 is 60.5 million, which is almost the same as the population of the entire Roman Empire in the second century.

Today, though, that amount of people is only enough to make up 0.8 percent of the entire human population a significantly lower percentage than in the second century.

Secondly, the knowledge of the world map has been dramatically expanded by this point in the late game, and everybody knows that the Mediterranean isn't at the center of everything.

Nearly all of the modern world's great powers, after all, aren't even located within the region, like the U.

K, Germany, Russia, India, China, Japan and the United States.

The Italian peninsula is still a strong geographic position to dominate the Mediterranean from, But that only goes so far as to establish regional domination today rather than the world domination of the past.

Because far fewer people live in the area proportionally than they did in ancient times, civilizations have expanded across the globe, trade has moved on to new seas and continents, and the Mediterranean, while still significant, is not as universally important as it was in the past.

To illustrate this point.

Even Mawr.

Let's analyze Italy's geographic problems she encountered during the world wars.

In 1915 the recently unified Italy joined the on taunt and declared war against Germany and Austria.

Hungary.

The Italian front line stretched across here from Switzerland to the Adriatic Sea and therefore was the only possible path for the Italian army to attack through overland.

Switzerland was mutual and could not be passed, and naval assault across the Adriatic Sea were complicated.

So unfortunately for the Italians, the whole for front ran through the gigantic mountains here and along the Sanzo River over here, meaning that whenever they attacked, they had to either fight over mountains or across a river.

The Austro Hungarians just had to sit in their forts on the mountains, are behind the river and let geography kill and slow the advancing Italians.

And that is exactly what they did.

11 times in 11 separate battles, the Italians attacked across Theus, Sanzo River, and 11 times they made effectively no progress and lost hundreds of thousands of men in the process.

On the 12th battle, it was the Austro Hungarians, supported by the Germans, who were the ones attacking, and they pushed the exhausted and demoralized Italians back over 100 kilometers near toe Venice, before they were finally stopped out of all of Italy's casualties in the war.

Half of them were spent just trying to break out of her geographic prison across Theus, Sanzo.

But Italy's geographic weaknesses extend well beyond this place and war.

Part of the reason why Italian states never became world colonizers in the first place is also due to sheer geographic placement.

It's no wonder that the European states who became the most successful colonizers were all located on the westernmost side of the continent because they had the easiest access to launch ships out into the global ocean system.

While Italy is well positioned to launch ships to dominate the Mediterranean, her access to the world Ocean is more limited because the only way out historically was through the Strait of Gibraltar, which is only 11 kilometers wide at its narrowest point.

And when an enemy is in control of the strait and chokes it off, Italian navies can't leave and they get trapped.

And this is what happened during the Second World War.

At this point, the British Empire controlled not only Gibraltar, but also the Suez Canal, which were the only two entrances and exits possible into the Mediterranean and so they could be used to contain the entire Italian navy inside, like a big bathtub.

Italy's navy couldn't break out to threaten the allies elsewhere unless they could take over one or the other, but they were never capable of it even further.

Britain also controlled the island of Malta.

That's roughly at the halfway point between Sicily and North Africa.

Malta was used as an outpost to harass Italy's shipping, logistics and supplies that she was sending out to her overseas troops fighting in North Africa and Italy was just never capable of dealing with it like a constant thorn in her side.

And once America got involved, the allies could just funnel in ships through either entrance and overwhelmed Italy, smaller navy and smaller industrial base that couldn't replenish losses as easily.

And by 1943 Italy was already defeated.

The allies had vast empires, and resource is to call upon from across the world that they could concentrate into the Mediterranean.

While Italy's colonial empire was much closer to home, just across the Mediterranean.

In Libya, and through the Suez in Somalia and Ethiopia, which were all very easy for the allies to cut off and separate from the Italian mainland's modern Italy, is also largely defined by her geographic realities.

Italy is very mountainous, after all, which makes development in those parts of the country pretty expensive.

Planes and flat land are cheaper to build cities in and develop, and this is the largest plane that Italy has, and it's called the Po River Valley.

So it should come as no surprise that this plane is home to some of Italy's most powerful cities, like Venice, Milan and Turin.

The Po Valley and nearby surrounding areas accounts for 46% of Italy's population and 55% of Italy's entire economy.

There is a huge economic divide between Italy's North and Italy South, which has caused tension and separatist movements to become popular.

Numerous polls have been taken in the province of Benetto that show over 50% SAPO support in the province for an independent state of Venice, and they're already exists to fully independent states that air separate from Italy in the Italian peninsula.

They never got San Marino and Vatican City which was given independence in 1929.

The mountains across Italy have kept people separated and led to the development of strong regional identities and autonomy and keeping the whole peninsula together.

And united has been a strong challenge for the Italian state ever since it was founded, and it continues to be a problem even today.

While a developed country and a modern great power, Italy's geographic position is still good for regional domination in the Mediterranean.

But it's no longer the ideal starting place for world domination like it was in the ancient past.

And so that is how Italy's geography got nerved in the late game of sieve I R L.

Geography, however, is just one of many aspects about our planet that influences one civilization, success and another one's hardships.

I could tell you all about how geology, physics, biology, psychology and even chemistry also all have major critical roles in a civilization success.

Or you could just watch the great documentary Siri's that will explain all of that for me.

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