Smallest Countries in the World by Area
 Vatican City |
The top ten smallest countries, in square kilometers.
| 1. | Vatican City | 0 |
| 2. | Monaco | 2 |
| 3. | Nauru | 21 |
| 4. | Tuvalu | 26 |
| 5. | San Marino | 61 |
| 6. | Liechtenstein | 160 |
| 7. | Saint Kitts and Nevis | 261 |
| 8. | Maldives | 298 |
| 9. | Malta | 316 |
| 10. | Grenada | 344 |
The smallest countries in the world are commonly called microsates, although that's not an official term. The absolute smallest, the Vatican and Monaco, are modern-day city-states. Or rather, the Vatican is a neighborhood-state in a larger city. The Holy See is part of no country, but it is contained within (and is powered by) the city of Rome. It's so small that rounding down to the nearest half gives the seemingly impossible size you see in the table.
NOTE: Country rankings aren't definitive; instead they provide an approximate comparison. Country data vary enormously depending on the sources, and there is an absence of reliable data on some countries.. Source: The World Factbook and the U.S. Census Bureau, International Database.
| General World Statistics |
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