As Italy faced war and the final moves towards unification in 1859 and 1860, statistics in the Annuario Statistico-Italiano for 1858 indicated that Italy had a population of just over twenty-seven million divided into fifteen seperate governments with a total of 110 provinces. The three main political entities were the kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in the north, the kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the south, and the Papal States in the central areas. Seven of the political entities, with a population of more than seven million, were considered to be under foreign domination, mostly at the hands of the Austrian Empire. The region was overwhelmingly Catholic and contained 256 out of the 536 Catholic bishoprics in all of Europe. It was also notable in Europe for its number of large cities, with Rome, Naples, Palermo, Venice, Florence, Milan, Genoa, and Turin all having more than 100,000 inhabitants. (By John Osborne)
Chronicle, The Annual Register or a View of the History and Politics of the Year 1859 (London: F. & J. Rivington, 1860), 73.