La città ha un milione di persone.

La is the feminine singular definite article, meaning the.

It is used because città is a feminine noun:

• la città = the city

In Italian, nouns usually need an article more often than in English, especially when you are talking about a specific thing, like the city.

The accent mark on città shows that the stress falls on the last syllable: cit-TÀ.

This accent is written because the word ends in a stressed vowel. In Italian, that written accent is important:

• città
• università
• età

So città must be written with à.

Ha is the third person singular of avere (to have).

In Italian, population is commonly expressed with avere:

• La città ha un milione di persone.

Literally, this is The city has one million people.

This is normal Italian. English can also say The city has..., so this structure matches English quite well.

Because Italian normally says a city has a certain number of people, rather than is a certain number of people.

So:

• La città ha un milione di persone. = correct

Using essere here would sound wrong for this meaning.

Italian usually drops subject pronouns when they are not needed.

The subject is already clear from La città, so there is no need to add a pronoun.

Italian prefers:

• La città ha un milione di persone.

Not usually:

• La città essa ha... ✘

Subject pronouns such as io, tu, lui, lei are often omitted unless you want emphasis or contrast.

Because milione is a noun, and here it means a million.

So Italian says:

• un milione = a million / one million

Just as in English you normally say a million people, Italian needs the article:

• un milione di persone

After numbers like milione, miliardo, and similar quantity nouns, Italian uses di before the thing being counted.

So:

• un milione di persone
• due milioni di abitanti
• un miliardo di euro

This is because milione behaves like a noun meaning a million (of...), so di links it to what follows.

Because the sentence is talking about many people, so the noun must be plural.

• persona = person
• persone = people/persons

Since un milione refers to a large number of individuals, Italian uses the plural:

• un milione di persone

It is correct, but in many contexts Italians would more naturally say abitanti (inhabitants).

So both are possible:

• La città ha un milione di persone.
• La città ha un milione di abitanti.

The second one is often more idiomatic when talking about a city's population.

Yes, absolutely. That is very natural Italian.

• persone = people
• abitanti = inhabitants/residents

If you are specifically talking about population, abitanti is often the better choice.

Here milione is a noun, not just a simple number word.

That is why it works like this:

• un milione di persone

And in the plural:

• due milioni di persone

Notice that it changes like a noun:

• singular: milione
• plural: milioni

This is the normal, neutral Italian word order:

subject + verb + quantity

• La città ha un milione di persone.

Italian can sometimes change word order for emphasis, but this version is the standard and most natural one for a learner to use.

Ha is pronounced just like a. The h is not pronounced.

The h is there to distinguish it in writing from other words:

• ha = has
• a = to / at

So:

• La città ha un milione di persone. means The city has one million people not The city to one million people

It is singular.

That is why you say:

• La città ha un milione di persone.

If the subject were due milioni, that quantity expression would be plural:

• La città ha due milioni di abitanti.

But in your sentence, the verb agrees with la città, which is singular anyway.

Yes. Even though the Italian sentence literally says The city has one million people, it can often be expressed naturally in English as:

• The city has a population of one million.

That is a translation choice, not a grammar difference in the Italian sentence itself.