There's an Italy that doesn't appear on maps, yet it has more inhabitants than Calabria and Sardinia combined. It's the Italy that lives beyond its borders: as of December 31, 2025, Italians living abroad were 6 million and 604 thousand, according to the latest ISTAT data released in recent days. 183.000 plus in just one year, an entire population that continues to grow.
And if this "other Italy" had a capital, it would be in South America. Because the country with the most Italians in the world is not Germany or Switzerland: it isArgentina, with over a million registered compatriots. Immediately behind, among the first in the world, the Brazil with 692 thousandIt is no coincidence: the whole of Central and South America is now home to the 34,3 % of all Italians abroad. One in three Italians worldwide breathes the air of Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Montevideo, or Rosario.
But the most beautiful fact is another, and it is the one that should move those who read from overseas: Only 30,3% of Italians living abroad were born in Italy. This means that nearly seven out of ten are the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of those who left with a cardboard suitcase. Not emigrants, but descendants. People born thousands of kilometers from the peninsula who have chosen, with pride and tenacity, often after years of application, to reclaim their ancestors' citizenship.
It's proof that blood and memory weigh more than distance. That a surname carried for generations on another continent remains a taut thread to a small town in the South, in Veneto or Friuli. Growth slows—in 2025, it was +2,8% versus +4,6% the previous year—but the bond doesn't: it strengthens, generation after generation.
You who read from around the world... you are not a statistic. You are the largest Italy outside of Italy. And South America, in this map of Italian pride, is firmly in first place worldwide.
