Portal:Vatican City

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The flag of Vatican City

Vatican City (/ˈvætɪkən/ ), officially the Vatican City State (Italian: Stato della Città del Vaticano; Latin: Status Civitatis Vaticanae), is a landlocked independent country, city-state, microstate, and enclave within Rome, Italy. It became independent from Italy in 1929 with the Lateran Treaty, and it is a distinct territory under "full ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdiction" of the Holy See, itself a sovereign entity under international law, which maintains the city-state's temporal power and governance, diplomatic, and spiritual independence. The Vatican is also a metonym for the Holy See, Pope, and Roman Curia.

With an area of 49 hectares (121 acres) and as of 2023 a population of about 764, it is the smallest state in the world both by area and by population. As governed by the Holy See, Vatican City State is an ecclesiastical or sacerdotal-monarchical state ruled by the Pope, who is the bishop of Rome and head of the Catholic Church. The highest state functionaries are all Catholic clergy of various origins. After the Avignon Papacy (1309–1377) the popes have mainly resided at the Apostolic Palace within what is now Vatican City, although at times residing instead in the Quirinal Palace in Rome or elsewhere. (Full article...)

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Benito Mussolini demolished a strip of medieval housing to create the Via della Conciliazione leading into St. Peter's Square.
The transportation system in Vatican City, a country 1.05 km long and 0.85 km wide,[1] is a small transportation system with no airports or highways. Given an average walking speed of 3.6 km/h,[2] Vatican City can be crossed in 20 minutes or less. Thus, much of the infrastructure in the Vatican consists of St. Peter's Square itself, hallways and aisles in the basilica and surrounding buildings, and walkways behind and between the buildings.[1] There is a heliport in the western corner of the city-state that is used for officials of the Holy See and official visitors.[3]

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Credit: Rb85

The Vatican Observatory (Specola Vaticana) is an astronomical research and educational institution supported by the Holy See. Originally based in the Roman College of Rome, it now has headquarters and laboratory at the summer residence of the Pope in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, and an observatory at the Mount Graham International Observatory in the United States.[4]

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Vatican Palace
Vatican Palace
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Vatican Palace: the gardens from the museum.

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Sources

  1. ^ a b Documentation
  2. ^ Walking speed
  3. ^ Vatican City Tiscali retrieved November 27, 2006
  4. ^ Johnson, George (2009-06-22). "Vatican's Celestial Eye, Seeking Not Angels but Data". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-06-24.
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