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Approx. 500,000 (May 2021) Pop. density. 1,664/km 2 (4310/sq mi) Ethnic groups. Maltese people. Malta is an island in Southern Europe. It is the largest and most populous of the three major islands that constitute the Maltese Archipelago.The island is situated in the Mediterranean Sea directly south of Italy and north of Libya.
The geography of Malta is dominated by water. Malta is an archipelago of coralline limestone, located in Europe, in the Mediterranean Sea, 81 kilometres south of Sicily, Italy, [1] and nearly 300 km north (Libya) and northeast (Tunisia) of Africa. Although Malta is situated in Southern Europe, it is located farther south than Tunis, capital of ...
The fortifications of Malta consist of a number of walled cities, citadels, forts, towers, batteries, redoubts, entrenchments and pillboxes.The fortifications were built over hundreds of years, from around 1450 BC to the mid-20th century, and they are a result of the Maltese islands' strategic position and natural harbours, which have made them very desirable for various powers.
The islands of the archipelago lie on the Malta plateau, a shallow shelf formed from the high points of a land bridge between Sicily and North Africa that became isolated as sea levels rose after the last ice age. [152] The archipelago is located on the African tectonic plate. [153] [154] Malta was considered an island of North Africa for ...
The earthquake of 11 January 1693 in Val di Noto is the most significant earthquake felt in Malta since the 16th century. In Sicily, it caused the death of around 60,000 individuals. With a magnitude of 7.4, it is considered to be the most powerful earthquakes in Italian history. [2] The earthquake was preceded on 9 January by a precursory ...
Malta has been inhabited since 5900 BC. [1][2] The first inhabitants were farmers; their agricultural methods degraded the soil until the islands became uninhabitable. The islands were repopulated around 3850 BC by a civilization that at its peak built the Megalithic Temples, which today are among the oldest surviving buildings in the world.
In the historical fiction novel The Religion, author Tim Willocks gives a fictionalized account of the battle for the fort (during the 1565 Siege of Malta). Lower Saint Elmo was used as a film location for the Turkish jail in the 1978 film Midnight Express. [34] The fort is mentioned in the 1980 thriller novel Man on Fire by A. J. Quinnell.
Cliffs of Upper Coralline Limestone Formation on islands at the western end of Comino. The top layer, the Upper Coralline Limestone (Maltese: Qawwi ta' Fuq), is the youngest formation of Messinian age (~7–5 million years old) and is around 140 m thick. [1] It is mainly present on the islands of Malta, Comino and in the east of Gozo. The ...