The Vatican City, Rome

Saint Peter's Square (Italian: Piazza San Pietro, pronounced [ˌpi̯aʦa san ˈpi̯ɛːtɾo]) is located directly in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the papal enclave within Rome (the Piazza borders to the East the rione of Borgo).

The Province of Rome (Italian: Provincia di Roma), is a province in the Lazio region of Italy. The province can be viewed as the extended metropolitan area of the city of Rome, although in its more peripheral portions, especially to the north, it comprises towns surrounded by rural landscape.

Lazio (pronounced [ˈlattsjo], Latin: Latium) is one of the 20 administrative regions of Italy, situated in the central peninsular section of the country. With about 5.7 million residents and a GDP of more than 170 billion euros, Lazio is the third most populated and the second richest region of Italy. It includes Rome, capital and largest city of Italy.

Civilization (or civilisation) is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally hierarchical and urbanized. In a classical context, people were called: "civilized" to set them apart from Barbarians, while in a modern-day context, "civilized peoples" have been contrasted with primitive peoples.

There is a tendency to use the term in a less strict way, to mean approximately the same thing as "culture" and therefore, the term can more broadly refer to any important and clearly defined human society.^{[citation needed]} Still, even when used in this second sense, the word is often restricted to apply only to societies that have attained a particular level of advancement-especially the founding of cities.

The level of advancement of a civilization is often measured by its progress in agriculture, long-distance trade, occupational specialization, a special governing class and urbanism. Aside from these core elements, a civilization is often marked by any combination of a number of secondary elements, including a developed transportation system, writing, standardized measurement, currency, contractual and (tort-based) legal systems, characteristic art and architecture, mathematics, enhanced scientific understanding, metallurgy, political structures, and an astronomical understanding.

Rome (English pronunciation: /ˈroʊm/; Italian: Roma pronounced [ˈroːma] ( listen); Latin: Rōma) is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in 1,285.3 km² (496.3 sq mi). The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.

Rome's history spans two and a half thousand years. It was the capital city of the Roman Kingdom and regarded as one of the birthplaces of western civilization, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, which was the dominant power in Western Europe and the lands bordering the Mediterranean for over seven hundred years from the 1st century BC until the 7th century AD. Since the 1st century AD Rome has been the seat of the Papacy and, after the end of Byzantine domination, in the 8th century it became the capital of the Papal States, which lasted until 1870. In 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic.

Vatican City ⁱ/ˈvætɨkən ˈsɪti/, or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano (pronounced [ˈstaːto della t͡ʃitˈta del vatiˈkaːno]), which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of approximately 44 hectares (110 acres), and a population of just over 800. This makes Vatican City the smallest independent state in the world by both area and population.