The Italian Forest Inventory in Brief.- Definitions and sampling design.- Land use and land cover photointerpretation.- Field assessment - survey protocols and data collection.- Procedures for the estimation of forest inventory quantitiesPlot level estimation procedures and models.- Area and characteristics of Italian forests.- Forest management and productive function.- Biodiversity and protected wooded lands.- Forest health.- Protective function and primary designated management objective.- Forest carbon stock.- Changes of Italian forests over time captured by the national forest inventories.