AFTER three years of recession, Italy’s economy grew in the first three months of the year by 0.3% compared with the previous quarter. It is forecast to grow by 0.7% over the year as a whole. But behind the national economic data lies a longstanding regional divide, which has deepened in recent years. To illustrate the gap, our interactive chart pits Italy’s north and south against 29 European countries on the basis of four indicators.

See comparisons for north and south Italy since 2007 across more measures here

In terms of GDP per person, Italians in the north are almost twice as rich as their southern compatriots. While northerners are wealthier than the Brits, southerners are poorer than the Slovenians. Unemployment averages 9.5% in the north compared with 20.8% in the south. On education, northern Italians score better on PISA maths tests than the French. Southerners, by contrast, fare worse than Croatians. Most of Italy lags behind Europe in terms of digital infrastructure, but while 74.9% of northern households have access to broadband, in the south only 65.5% do, fewer than in Cyprus. Regional divides are common in many countries, but the Italian case is peculiar because of its longevity. In the 1990s the gulf between east and west Germany was much wider than that between northern and southern Italy; now it is smaller.

MORE: Read our 2011 Special Report on Italy here.