As with personal names, so with geographical names: the older the name (in the Latin or Italian tradition, that is), the more likely it is that it will have an Italianized version. This explains the great number of European locations in the following lists.

Each continent, country, region, and city has been complemented, whenever possible, by the adjective that, used as a noun, denotes the corresponding inhabitant. The adjectives that do not fulfil this function have been put in brackets. Any special form used in compound adjectives (e.g. anglo-) has also been given.

The geographical adjectives, even though the suffixes -ese and -ano characterize many of them, show a variety of endings, and in some cases appear quite removed from the name of the place they refer to. This is usually due to their deriving directly from older (mostly Latin or Latinized) geographical denominations, e.g. londinese < Lat. londiniensem < Londinium (London).

In everyday speech, if the particular adjective does not exist or is not known – some of those referring to less prominent places tend to be less commonly used – it is always possible to resort to the expression di (or del/dello/etc., according to the nature of the locality) + name of the place, e.g. quella signora è di Aosta; quella signora è della Valle d'Aosta.