Rome
 Rome, the Eternal City, is the capital of Italy. It was once the capital of the Roman Empire, the most powerful, largest and longest lasting empire of classical Western civilization. The Vatican, a sovereign enclave within Rome, is the seat of the Roman Catholic Church and the home of the Pope.
Rome is the largest city and comune in Italy and it is also one of the largest among European capital cities (in land area), with an area of 1,285 square kilometers. The comune territory extends up to the Tyrrhenian Sea, with the district of Ostia, on the south-west, located on the shore. Within the city limits, the population is about 2.5 million; almost 3.8 million live in the general area of Rome, as represented by the province of Rome, making it second in population to Milan as Italy's two largest cities.
 The city's history extends nearly 2,800 years, during which time it has been the seat of ancient Rome and, later, the Papal States, Kingdom of Italy and Italian Republic (modern Italy). Rome is also called "la Città Eterna" (the Eternal City), "l'Urbe" (the latin for the City pre-eminently) and "The City of the Seven Hills".
The civilization of ancient Rome originated in the 8th or 9th century BC, when the tribe of the Latini migrated to the Italian peninsula to settle around the River Tiber. For almost a thousand years, Rome was the most important city in the Western world and possibly the largest city in the world, with around 1.5 to 2 million inhabitants, as the capital of the expansive Roman Empire. With the rise of Christianity, Rome became the center of the Roman Catholic Church and the home of the popes. The slow decline of the Roman Empire heralded the beginning of the Middle Ages, but the city regained prominence as the cultural capital of Western Roman Empire for several hundred years leading up to the Renaissance. Rome remains influential today, as the capital of Italy and of the Catholic Church and as a major metropolis.
 In Roman mythology, Rome was founded on April 21, 753 BC by the twin descendants of the Trojan prince Aeneas, Romulus and Remus. Romulus killed Remus in a quarrel over where their city was to be located and became the first of seven Kings of Rome, as well as the source of the city's name[1].
Central Rome is dominated by the traditional seven hills that hark back to the Latin founding myth of the city. These seven hills are the Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Caelian, Aventine, Capitoline, and Palatine Hills. The Tiber River and its islands are an important additional component of the city, flowing south through the western portion of the central zone.
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