Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1899 American Edition.djvu/1075

 AREA AND POPULATION

719

tho province when the latter is not sitting. Both communal and provincial councillors are elected for five years, one-fifth being renewed every year. The communal council meets twice and the provincial once a year in ordinai-y session, though they may be convened for extraordinaiy pui-poses. All communal electors are eligible to the council except those having an oflRcial or pecuniary interest in the commune. Persons not resident in the province, or having no solid interest in it, or who do not pay taxes on movable property, as well as ofiicials in any way interested in the province, are ineligible to the provincial councils. Electors must be Italian citizens, twenty-one years of age, able to read and write, be on the Parliamentary electoral list, or pay a direct annual contribution to the commune, of any nature, or comply with other conditions of a very simple character.

In 1895 the number of enrolled administrative electors was 2,814,918, of whom 41,984 were temporarily deprived of electoral rights. In the general communal elections of 1895, 1,762,081 electors voted, or 63-55 per cent, of the total number. The number of electors, both political and administrative, has been considerably reduced in consequence of the general revision of the lists in accordance with the electoral law of July 11, 1894.

Area and Population. I. Progress and Present Condition.

The first census of United Italy was taken on December 31, 1861, but at that date Venetia, certain districts of the province of Mantua, and the present province of Rome had not been annexed, and were excluded from the census. At the censuses of 1871 and 1881, the area was, as now, 114,410 square miles. In 1861 the area of the Kingdom of Italy was about 96,500 square miles. The census of 1861, of 1871, and of 1881 gave the follow- ing results: — December 31, 1861 (excluding the regions annexed, Yenetia, southern part of Mantua, and the province of Rome), 21,777,334; December 31, 1871 (present territory), 26,801,154; December 31, 1881 (present territory), 28,459,628.

The following figures show the increase of the population of the present territory of the Kingdom of Italy from 1800 onwards, in round numbers : —

Year

1800 1816 1825 1838

Population

Increase per

cent, per

annum

Year

1

Population

Increase per

cent, per

annum

18,124,000 18,383,000 19,727,000 21,975,000

0-089 0-812 0-876 1

1848 1861 1871 1881

23,617,000 2.5,000,000 26,800,000 28,460,000

0-747 0-450 0-400 0-619

The Kingdom of Italy is divided into 69 provinces, the names of which, with area (as determined by a recent survey executed by the Italian Government) in English square miles, population in 1881, estimated population, and density per square mile