PENINSULA.IT

The Italian Peninsula or Apennine Peninsula, also Italy (Italian: Penisola italiana or Penisola appenninica) is one of the three large peninsulas of Southern Europe (the other two being the Iberian Peninsula and Balkan Peninsula), spanning 1,000 km (620 mi) from the Po Valley in the north to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south. The peninsula's shape gives it the nickname Lo Stivale (The Boot). Three smaller peninsulas contribute to this characteristic shape, namely Calabria, Salento and Gargano. Since the reign of Roman Emperor Augustus (end of first century BCE), the northern border of the peninsula has been set on the Alps watershed, but geographically it coincides with a line extending from the Magra to the Rubicon rivers, north of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, which excludes the Po Valley and the southern slope of the Alps.