Venice (/ˈvɛnɪs/, VEN-iss; Italian: Venezia [veˈnɛttsja] (listen); Venetian: Venesia, Venexia [veˈnɛsja]) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is situated on a group of 118 small islands[3] that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges.[3][4] The islands are located in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay that lies between the mouths of the Po and the Piave rivers (more exactly between the Brenta and the Sile). In 2018, 260,897 people resided in the Comune di Venezia, of whom around 55,000 live in the historical city of Venice (centro storico). Together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE), which is considered a statistical metropolitan area, with a total population of 2.6 million.[5]

The name is derived from the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region by the 10th century BC.[6][7] The city was historically the capital of the Republic of Venice. The 697–1797 Republic of Venice was a major financial and maritime power during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and a staging area for the Crusades and the Battle of Lepanto, as well as an important center of commerce (especially silk, grain, and spice) and art in the 13th century up to the end of the 17th century. The city-state of Venice is considered to have been the first real international financial center, emerging in the 9th century and reaching its greatest prominence in the 14th century.[8] This made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history.[9] After the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna, the Republic was annexed by the Austrian Empire, until it became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1866, following a referendum held as a result of the Third Italian War of Independence.