Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is a small nation comprising an archipelago of seven islands, three of which are inhabited. It is located in the Mediterranean Sea in Southern Europe just 93 km (58 mi) south of Sicily, giving the country a warm, Mediterranean climate, and 288 km (179 mi) to its south is North Africa. The nation's de facto capital city is the historic Valletta.
Throughout much of its history, Malta has been considered a crucial strategic location due in large part to its position in the Mediterranean Sea. It was held by several ancient cultures including Sicilians, Romans, Phoenicians, Byzantines and others. The island is commonly associated with the Knights of St. John who ruled it. This, along with the historic Biblical shipwreck of St. Paul on the island, ingrained the strong Roman Catholic legacy which is still the official and most practised religion in Malta today. The country's official languages are Maltese and English, the latter a legacy from Malta's period as a British colony – the United Kingdom is the most recent outside ruling power. Malta gained independence in 1964 and is currently a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, as well as the European Union which it joined in 2004.

The Maltese islands were first settled in 5200 BC by stone age farmers who had arrived from the nearby, much larger island of Sicily, they were called Sicanians . During 3500 BC, these people built the oldest free-standing structures and oldest religious structures in the world, in the form of the megalithic Ġgantija temples on Gozo,other early temples include those at Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra. Around 700 BC, there was Ancient Greek culture on Malta, especially around the area ofValletta. A century later the natives were joined on the island by Phoenician traders, who used the islands as an outpost for their trade explorations in the Mediterranean Sea