Venice (Italian: Venezia) is a coastal city in northeastern Italy, on the shores of the Adriatic Sea. It extends over a set of 121 small islands separated by a network of canals and connected by 435 bridges. Located in the middle of the Venetian lagoon, between the Po and Piave estuaries, Venice is renowned for its exceptional location as well as its architecture and cultural heritage, which earned it a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation.Venice is the capital of the Veneto region. In 2012, the municipality had 269,810 inhabitants, of which 58,666 were intramural (Centro storico). 176,000 residents on the shores (Terraferma), mostly in the frazioni of Mestre and Marghera, and the remaining 31,000 residents reside in other islands of the lagoon. Together with Padua and Treviso, Venice is the metropolitan area of Padua-Treviso-Venice (PATREVE), a statistical entity of 1,600,000 inhabitants.