Italy is a sovereign state.
Italian unification ( Unificazione italiana ) , or the Risorgimento ( [ risordʒiˈmento ] , meaning resurgence or revival ) , was the political and social movement that consolidated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of the Kingdom of Italy in the 19th century . Italy . After various unsuccessful attempts , the Italian Wars of Independence and the Expedition of the Thousand resulted in the eventual unification of the country in 1861 , now a great power after centuries of foreign domination and political division . A sovereign state is , in international law , a nonphysical juridical entity that is represented by one centralized government that has sovereignty over a geographic area .