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===Education===Rome is a nation-wide centre for higher education. Its first university, La Sapienza (founded in 1303), is the largest in Europe and the second-largest in the world, with more than 150,000 students attending.date=February 2007 Two new public universities were founded: Tor Vergata in 1982, and Roma Tre in 1992, although the latter has now become larger than the former. Rome also contains a large number of pontifical universities and institutes, including the Pontifical Gregorian University (The oldest Jesuit university in the world, founded in 1551), the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, and many others. The city also hosts various private universities, such as the LUMSA, the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Roman centre), the LUISS, Istituto Europeo di Design, the St. John's University, the John Cabot University, the IUSM, the American University of Rome, the Scuola Lorenzo de' Medici, the Link Campus of Malta, the S. Pio V University of Rome, and the Università Campus Bio-Medico. Rome is also the location of the John Felice Rome Center, a campus of Loyola University Chicago.

Music

Rome is an important centre for music. It hosts the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (founded in 1585), for which new concert halls have been built in the new Parco della Musica, one of the largest musical venues in the world. Rome also has an opera house, the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, as well as several minor musical institutions. The city also played host to the Eurovision Song Contest in 1991 and the MTV Europe Music Awards in 2004.

Cinema

Rome hosts the Cinecittà Studios, the largest film and television production facility in continental Europe and the centre of the Italian cinema, where a large number of today's biggest box office hits are filmed. The 99-acre (40-ha) studio complex is 5.6 miles (9 km) from the centre of Rome and is part of one of the biggest production communities in the world, second only to Hollywood, with well over 5,000 professionals — from period costume makers to visual effects specialists. More than 3,000 productions have been made on its lot, from recent features like The Passion of the Christ, Gangs of New York, HBO's Rome, The Life Aquatic and Dino De Laurentiis’ Decameron, to such cinema classics as Ben-Hur, Cleopatra, and the films of Federico Fellini.

Founded in 1937 by Benito Mussolini, the studios were bombed by the Western Allies during the Second World War. In the 1950s, Cinecittà was the filming location for several large American film productions, and subsequently became the studio most closely associated with Federico Fellini. Today Cinecittà is the only studio in the world with pre-production, production, and full post-production facilities on one lot, allowing directors and producers to walk in with their script and ''walk out'' with a completed film.

Language

The original language of Rome was Latin, which evolved during the Middle Ages into Italian. The latter emerged as the confluence of various regional dialects, among which the Tuscan dialect predominated, but the population of Rome also developed its own dialect, the Romanesco. The ancient ''romanesco'', used during the Middle Ages, was a southern Italian dialect, very close to the Neapolitan. The influence of the Florentine culture during the renaissance, and, above all, the immigration to Rome of many Florentines, amongst them the two Medici Popes (Leo X and Clement VII) and their suite, caused a major shift in the dialect, which began to resemble more the Tuscan varieties (the immigration of Florentines was mainly due to the Sack of Rome in 1527 and the subsequent demographic decrease). This remained largely confined to Rome until the 19th century, but then expanded to other zones of Lazio (Civitavecchia, Latina), from the beginning of the 20th century, thanks to the rising population of Rome and to better transportation systems. As a consequence, Romanesco abandoned its traditional forms to mutate into the dialect spoken within the city, which is more like standard Italian, although it remains distinct from the other Romanesco-influenced local dialects of Lazio. Dialectal literature in the traditional form Romanesco includes the works of such authors as Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, Trilussa, and Cesare Pascarella. Contemporary Romanesco is mainly represented by popular actors such as Aldo Fabrizi, Alberto Sordi, Nino Manfredi, Anna Magnani, Gigi Proietti, Enrico Montesano, and Carlo Verdone.

Sports

Rome hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics and is an official candidate to hosting the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Football is the most popular sport in Rome, as in the rest of the country. The Olympic Stadium hosted the final game of the 1990 FIFA World Cup; it is also the home stadium for local Serie A clubs A.S. Roma and S.S. Lazio, whose rivalry has become a staple of Roman sports culture. Indeed, famous footballers who play for these teams and are also born in the city tend to become especially popular, as has been the case with players such as Francesco Totti and Daniele De Rossi (both for A.S. Roma).

While far from being as popular as football, Rugby union is gaining wider acceptance. The Stadio Flaminio is the home stadium for the Italy national rugby union team, which has been playing in the Six Nations Championship since 2000, albeit with less than satisfactory performances, as they have never won the championship so far. Rome is home to local rugby teams, such as Unione Rugby Capitolina, Rugby Roma, and S.S. Lazio.

Every May, Rome hosts the ATP Masters Series tennis tournament on the clay courts of the Foro Italico. Cycling was immensely popular in the post-WWII period, although its popularity has faded in the last decades; Rome has hosted the final portion of the Giro d'Italia twice, in 1989 and 2000. Rome is also home to many other sports teams, including basketball (Virtus Roma), volleyball (M. Roma Volley), handball or waterpolo.

Transportation

Rome is at the centre of the radial network of roads that roughly follow the lines of the ancient roman roads that began at the Capitoline Hill and connected Rome with its empire. Today Rome is circled, at a distance of about 10 km mi 0 abbr=on, by the ring-road called the ''Grande Raccordo Anulare''.

Due to its location in the centre of the Italian peninsula, Rome is a principal railway node for central Italy. Rome's main train station, Termini, is one of the biggest train stations in Europe and the most heavily-used in Italy, with around 400 thousand travellers passing through every day. The second-largest station in the city, Roma Tiburtina, is currently being redeveloped as a high-speed rail terminus.

Rome is also served by three airports. The intercontinental Leonardo Da Vinci International Airport is Italy's chief airport and is more commonly known as ''Fiumicino Airport'', as it is located within the nearby Commune of Fiumicino, south-west of Rome. The older Rome Ciampino Airport is a joint civilian and military airport. It is more commonly referred to as ''Ciampino Airport'', as it is located beside Ciampino, south-east of Rome. A third airport, the Aeroporto dell'Urbe, is a small, low-traffic airport located about 6 km north of the city centre, which handles most helicopter and private flights.

The city suffers from considerable traffic problems largely due to this radial street pattern, making it difficult for Romans to move easily from the vicinity of one of the radial roads to another without going into the historic centre or using the ring-road. Problems that are not helped by limited size of Rome's metro system when compared to other cities of similar size. In addition, Rome has only 21 taxis for every 10,000 inhabitants, far below other major European cities. Chronic congestion caused by cars during the 1970s and 1980s led to restrictions being placed on vehicle access to the inner city-centre during the hours of daylight. Areas where these restriction apply are known as Limited Traffic Zones (''Zona a Traffico Limitato'' (ZTL) in Italian). More recently, heavy night-time traffic in Trastevere and San Lorenzo has led to the creation of night-time ZTLs in those districts, and there are also plans to create another night-time ZTL in Testaccio.

A 2-line metro system called the ''Metropolitana'' operates in Rome. Construction on the first branch started in the 1930s. The line had been planned to quickly connect the main train station with the newly-planned E42 area in the southern suburbs, where the 1942 World Fair was supposed to be held. The event never took place because of war. The area was later partly redesigned and renamed EUR (Esposizione Universale di Roma: Rome Universal Exhibition) in the 1950s to serve as a modern business district. The line was finally opened in 1955, and it is now part of the B Line. The A line opened in 1980 from Ottaviano to Anagnina stations, later extended in stages (1999 - 2000) to Battistini. In the 1990s, an extension of the B line was opened from Termini to Rebibbia. This underground network is generally reliable (although it may become very congested at peak times and during events, especially the A line) as it is relatively short. As of 2005, its total length is 38 km mi 0 abbr=on. The two existing lines, A & B, intersect at Roma Termini station. A new branch of the B line (B1) is under construction with an estimated cost of €500 million. It is scheduled to open in 2010. B1 will connect to line B at Piazza Bologna and will have 4 stations over a distance of 3.9 km mi 0 abbr=on. A third line, line C, is under construction with an estimated cost of €3 billion and will have 30 stations over a distance of 25.5 km mi 0 abbr=on. It will partly replace the existing Rail Road line, Termini-Pantano. It will feature full automated, driverless trains. The first section is due to open in 2011 and the final sections in 2015, but archaeological findings often delay underground construction work. A fourth line, line, is also planned. It will have 22 stations over a distance of 20 km mi 0 abbr=on. The first section is projected to open in 2015 and the final sections before 2035.

Above-ground public transport in Rome is made up of a bus and tram network. This network is run by ''Trambus S.p.A.'' under the auspices of ''ATAC S.p.A.'' (which originally stood for the Bus and Tram Agency of the Commune, ''Azienda Tranvie ed Autobus del Comune'' in Italian). The bus network is currently made up of in excess of 350 bus lines and over 8 thousand bus stops, whereas the more-limited tram system currently has 39 km of track and 192 stops.

International entities, organisations and involvement

Rome is unique in having a sovereign state located entirely within its city limits, the Vatican City. The Vatican is a enclave of Rome and a sovereign possession of the Holy See, the supreme government of the Roman Catholic Church. Rome hosts foreign embassies to both Italy and the Holy See, although frequently the same ambassador is accredited to both.

Another body, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), took refuge in Rome in 1834 after having lost Malta to Napoleon. It is sometimes classified as having sovereignty but does not claim any territory in Rome or anywhere else, hence leading to dispute over its actual sovereign status.

Rome is also the seat of significant international organisations of the United Nations, such as the World Food Programme (WFP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

Rome has traditionally been heavily involved in the process of European political integration. In 1957, the city hosted the signing of the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community (predecessor to the European Union), and also played host to the official signing of the proposed European Constitution in July 2004.

Rome is the seat of the NATO Defence College and is the place where the Statute of the International Criminal Court was formulated.

Sister and partner cities

Rome has one sister city, and a number of partner cities:

Twin city

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