Rome (pronounced /r??m/; Italian: Roma, pronounced /'roma/; Latin: Roma) is the capital city of Italy and Lazio,[2] and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with more than 2.7 million residents,[3] and a metropolitan area of almost 4 million inhabitants. It is located in the central-western portion of the Italian peninsula, on the Tiber river. Rome stands on top of more than two and a half thousand years of history, was once the largest city in the world and a major centre of Western civilisation. Rome is still the seat of the Roman Catholic Church which controls the Vatican City as its sovereign territory, an enclave of Rome. Today, Rome is a modern and cosmopolitan city and the third most-visited tourist destination in the European Union.[4] Rome's international airport, Fiumicino, is the largest in Italy and the city hosts the head offices of the vast majority of the major Italian companies, as well as the headquarters of three of the world's 100 largest companies: Enel, ENI, and Telecom Italia.[5] As one of the few major European cities that escaped World War II relatively unscathed, central Rome remains essentially Renaissance and Baroque in character. The historic centre of Rome is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
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