Italians in Germany
Italian Germans (Italian: italo-tedeschi; German: Deutschitaliener) are German-born or naturalized citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent, whose ancestors were Italians who emigrated to Germany during the Italian diaspora, as well as the communities of Italians in Switzerland and, to a slightly lesser extent, Italians from South Tyrol. Most Italians moved to Germany for reasons of work, others for personal relations, study, or political reasons. Today, Italians in Germany form one of the largest Italian diasporas in the world and account for one of the largest immigrant groups in Germany.
Italian worker in Duisburg in 1962 | |
| Total population | |
| c. 1,200,000 (by ancestry, about 1.4% of the total German population) c. 650,000 (by birth) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Berlin · Frankfurt · Stuttgart · Cologne · Munich · Rhein-Ruhr · Nuremberg · Freiburg · Hamburg · Mainz | |
| Languages | |
| German · Italian · other languages of Italy | |
| Religion | |
| Major Catholicism · Lutheranism · Others | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Italians, Italian Belgians, Italian Britons, Italian Finns, Italian French, Italian Romanians, Italian Spaniards, Italian Swedes, Italian Swiss, Corfiot Italians, Genoese in Gibraltar, Italians of Crimea, Italians of Odesa |
It is not clear how many people in Germany are of Italian descent, since the German government does not collect data on ethnicity. However, based on the German "microcensus," which surveys 1% of the German population annually and includes a question on the nationality of the surveyees' parents, the number is at least 873,000 people. The total number (i.e. including third generation German Italians and above) is approximately 1,200,000 people.