Country Overview
Malta is an island nation in the center of the Mediterranean Sea. The archipelago, a small but strategically notable group of islands, has played a significant role throughout its long and turbulent history in the conflicts between various powers for control of the Mediterranean and in the interactions between emerging Europe and the more ancient cultures of Africa and the Middle East. Thus, centuries of foreign control by numerous empires, such as the Phoenicians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Normans, Sicilians, Swabians, Aragonese, Hospitallers, French, and British, have shaped Maltese society.