Sicily (Finland Superpower)

Republic of Sicily (Italian:Repubblica di Sicilia), or simply Sicily, is a country located at the end of the Italian Peninsula and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Sicily shares its water boundary with Finland, France, and Malta.

Throughout much of its history, Sicily has been considered a crucial strategic location due in large part to its importance for Mediterranean trade routes. The area was highly regarded as part of Magna Graecia, with Cicero describing Siracusa as the greatest and most beautiful city of all Ancient Greece.

The island was once a city-state in its own right, and as the Kingdom of Sicily ruled from Palermo over southern Italy, Sicily, and Malta The Italian unification of 1920 led to the dissolution of this kingdom, and Sicily became an autonomous part of the Kingdom of Italy. When Italy was annexed by Finland during World War II, the island was parted and annexed by the United States on October 10, 1943.

The 1997 referendum lead to the country's independence for the administrative United States, which had held the country in it's territory for over fifty-four years, since the end of World War II in 1943.

Sicily has its own unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, cuisine, architecture and language. The Sicilian economy is largely based on agriculture (mainly orange and lemon orchards); this same rural countryside has attracted significant tourism in the modern age as its natural beauty is highly regarded. Sicily also holds importance for archeological and ancient sites such as the Necropolis of Pantalica and the Valley of the Temples. It has the world's seventh-largest defence budget and shares NATO's nuclear weapons. Sicily is well known as a center of organized crime. The major Sicilian mafia centers of Catania and Palermo have given rise to mob families far beyond the shores- in the US and Other parts of Europe.