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Venice is famous for its canals. It is built on an archipelago of more than 100 islands in a shallow lagoon. In the old center, the canals serve the function of roads, and every form of transport is on water or on foot. In the 19th century a causeway to the mainland brought a railroad station to Venice, and an automobile causeway and parking lot was added in the 20th century. Beyond these land entrances at the northern edge of the city, transportation within the city remains, as it was in centuries past, entirely on water or on foot. Venice is Europe's largest carfree area, unique in Europe in remaining a sizable functioning city in the 21st century entirely without motorcars or trucks.

The chief executive was the Doge (duke), who, theoretically, held his elective office for life. In practice, a number of Doges were forced by pressure from their oligarchical peers to resign the office and retire into monastic seclusion when they were felt to have been discredited by perceived political failure.

Running through most of the city, it "starts" from the lagoon at the train station, makes a large S-shape through the central parts of Venice, and ends by the Canal of San Marco at Piazza San Marco (Saint Mark's Square). Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute stands at the junction between the two canals.

By the eighteenth century, the Serene Republic was largely a shadow of its former glory, although it continued to rule over Venetia, the Adriatic littoral, and the Ionian Islands. In 1797 it was invaded by the French troops of General Napoleon Bonaparte, who partitioned the republic between France and the Austrians.

The Venetian governmental structure was a mix of Byzantine and Islamic systems, but the social order was entirely feudal. Church and various private properties were tied to military service, though there was no knight tenure within the city itself. The Cavalieri di San Marco was the only order of chivalry ever instituted in Venice, and no citizen could accept or join a foreign order without the government’s consent. Venice remained a republic throughout its independent period and politics and the military were kept completely separate. War was regarded as a continuation of commerce by other means (hence, the city's early production of large numbers of mercenaries for service elsewhere).

In the early years of the republic, the political system can be classified as an autocracy, with the Doge as the almost absolute ruler. In 1223, the aristocratic families of Rialto drastically diminished the powers of the Doge by the establishment of an advisory body that would later be called the Quarantia and a supreme tribunal which would later be called the Signoria. They also created two bodies called sapientes which later grew into six bodies. The combination of sapientes and certain other groups was called a collegio, a kind of ministry to carry out the functions of government. A senate, called the Consiglio dei Pregadi was organized in 1229 with sixty members elected by the Major Council1. During this period the Doge had little real power left, and actual authority was exercised by the Great Council, an extremely limited parliament-like body in which only members of the great aristocratic families of the republic were allowed to participate. Venice claimed that its government was a 'classical republic' because it was a fusion of the three basic forms present in a mixed government: with the regal power in the Doge, the aristocratic in the senate, and the democratic in the Great Council2.