What Is the Smallest Country in the World? (And 9 Runners-Up)

The smallest country in the world is Vatican City, an independent city-state entirely surrounded by Rome, Italy. At roughly 0.49 square kilometers (about 0.19 square miles), it's smaller than New York's Central Park and could fit inside most international airports. You can walk across the entire country in about 20 minutes.

But Vatican City is only the beginning of the story. The world's ten smallest countries include Pacific atolls, Alpine principalities, Mediterranean fortress islands, and a nation that consists mostly of coral reefs barely above sea level. Here's the complete top ten, from smallest up.

1. Vatican City — 0.49 km²

Vatican City became an independent state in 1929 under the Lateran Treaty between the Holy See and Italy. It is the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church, home to the Pope, St. Peter's Basilica, and the Sistine Chapel.

Beyond its size, the Vatican racks up superlatives:

• Smallest population of any country — well under 1,000 residents, mostly clergy and the Swiss Guard
• Only country where Latin is an official language
• Only country that is entirely a UNESCO World Heritage Site
• The world's shortest railway — about 300 meters of track

One common trivia trap: Vatican City is not a member of the United Nations (it holds permanent observer status). That's why "smallest UN member state" is a different answer — see number 2.

2. Monaco — 2.02 km²

Squeezed between the French Riviera and the Mediterranean Sea, Monaco is the world's second-smallest country and its smallest UN member state. It's famous for the Monte Carlo casino, the Monaco Grand Prix, and having no personal income tax.

Monaco is also the most densely populated country on Earth, packing nearly 40,000 residents into a space smaller than most golf courses. It's so short on land that it has repeatedly expanded into the sea — a meaningful share of its territory is land reclaimed from the Mediterranean.

3. Nauru — 21 km²

The jump from Monaco to Nauru is enormous in relative terms — Nauru is ten times larger — yet it's still a dot in the Pacific Ocean. Nauru holds three notable titles:

• Smallest island nation in the world
• Smallest republic in the world
• The only country with no official capital city

Nauru grew briefly wealthy in the 20th century from phosphate mining (essentially fossilized seabird droppings), which stripped much of the island's interior down to jagged limestone pinnacles — a striking example of resource geography shaping a nation's fate.

4. Tuvalu — 26 km²

Tuvalu is a chain of nine coral atolls and reef islands scattered across the Pacific, midway between Hawaii and Australia. Its highest point is only about 4.6 meters above sea level, making it one of the countries most threatened by rising seas.

Geography quirk turned economic lifeline: Tuvalu's internet country code is .tv, and licensing it to streaming and television companies has earned the country millions of dollars — a rare case of a domain name becoming a national resource.

5. San Marino — 61 km²

Perched on the slopes of Mount Titano and completely surrounded by Italy, San Marino claims to be the world's oldest surviving republic, tracing its founding to the year 301. Like Vatican City, it's an enclave within Italy — Italy is one of only three countries in the world to completely surround other countries (the third example surrounds Lesotho; see our Southern Africa quizzes).

6. Liechtenstein — 160 km²

This German-speaking principality sits in the Alps between Switzerland and Austria. Liechtenstein is one of only two doubly landlocked countries in the world — landlocked entirely by other landlocked countries — along with Uzbekistan. A resident would need to cross at least two international borders to reach the sea.

Despite its size, Liechtenstein is an industrial powerhouse per capita and famously has more registered companies than citizens.

7. Marshall Islands — 181 km²

The Marshall Islands consist of over 1,200 islands and islets spread across 29 coral atolls in the central Pacific. Its land area is tiny, but its ocean territory is vast — the country's exclusive economic zone covers nearly 2 million square kilometers of sea. Bikini Atoll, site of Cold War nuclear tests, is part of the Marshalls and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

8. Saint Kitts and Nevis — 261 km²

The smallest country in the Western Hemisphere — by both area and population — is this two-island federation in the Caribbean's Leeward Islands. The islands are volcanic in origin, with rainforest-covered peaks rising steeply from the sea. Saint Kitts and Nevis is also the smallest sovereign state ever to host a World Cup qualifier tournament match, a favorite among sports-geography trivia fans.

9. Maldives — 298 km²

The Maldives is the smallest country in Asia and the flattest country in the world — its natural high point is under 2.5 meters above sea level, the lowest maximum elevation of any nation. The country is composed of nearly 1,200 coral islands grouped into 26 atolls, stretched across 90,000 square kilometers of the Indian Ocean. In other words: 99% of the Maldives is water.

10. Malta — 316 km²

Rounding out the top ten is Malta, an island nation in the central Mediterranean south of Sicily. Malta is the smallest member state of the European Union and one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Its capital, Valletta, is one of Europe's smallest capital cities — the whole city covers less than one square kilometer.

Quick Reference: The 10 Smallest Countries by Area

Rank	Country	Area (km²)	Region
1	Vatican City	0.49	Europe
2	Monaco	2.02	Europe
3	Nauru	21	Pacific
4	Tuvalu	26	Pacific
5	San Marino	61	Europe
6	Liechtenstein	160	Europe
7	Marshall Islands	181	Pacific
8	Saint Kitts and Nevis	261	Caribbean
9	Maldives	298	Asia
10	Malta	316	Europe

Notice the pattern: five of the ten are in Europe, a legacy of medieval city-states and principalities that survived into the modern era, while the Pacific contributes three — the world's smallest countries are overwhelmingly either historical microstates or island nations.

How Do Countries This Small Survive?

A country smaller than a city park has no farmland, no mines, and no room for factories — so how do microstates stay afloat? Each of the top ten has found a niche:

• Specialized finance and low taxes: Monaco, Liechtenstein, and San Marino built economies on banking, insurance, and favorable tax regimes that attract wealth from much larger neighbors.
• Tourism concentrated to an extreme degree: The Maldives and Malta earn a huge share of GDP from visitors; Vatican City's museums draw millions of pilgrims and tourists into a country with zero hotels of its own.
• Selling sovereignty itself: Tuvalu licenses its .tv domain; several microstates earn revenue from postage stamps prized by collectors, ship registries, and fishing rights across vast ocean territories. The Marshall Islands' flag flies on cargo ships worldwide because of its open ship registry.
• A powerful patron next door: Most European microstates outsource the expensive parts of statehood. Liechtenstein uses the Swiss franc and lets Switzerland handle its customs; Monaco's defense is guaranteed by France; San Marino and Vatican City use the euro without being EU members.

The pattern is consistent: microstates survive by being useful to bigger economies while keeping the flexibility that only a tiny state can have. It's also why so few new microstates ever form — the existing ones are historical survivors from an era before consolidated nation-states, protected now by treaties and tradition.