The Smallest Countries in the World

The world’s smallest independent states ranked by land area. Several are city-states you could walk across in an hour — Vatican City is smaller than many single parks.

Ranked 30 smallest

#	Country	Continent	Area (km²)	Area (mi²)	Population
1	Svalbard and Jan Mayen	Northern Europe	-1	-0	—
2	Vatican City	Southern Europe	0	0	—
3	Monaco	Western Europe	2	1	38,956
4	Gibraltar	Southern Europe	6	2	38,471
5	Tokelau	Polynesia	12	5	—
6	Cocos (Keeling) Islands	Australia & New Zealand	14	5	—
7	Saint Barthélemy	Caribbean	21	8	—
8	Nauru	Micronesia	21	8	11,875
9	Tuvalu	Polynesia	26	10	9,816
10	Macau	Eastern Asia	30	12	678,800
11	Sint Maarten	Caribbean	34	13	42,749
12	United States Minor Outlying Islands	North America	34	13	—
13	Norfolk Island	Australia & New Zealand	36	14	—
14	Pitcairn Islands	Polynesia	47	18	—
15	Bouvet Island	Antarctic	49	19	—
16	Saint Martin	Caribbean	53	20	27,515
17	Bermuda	North America	54	21	64,698
18	British Indian Ocean Territory	Eastern Africa	60	23	—
19	San Marino	Southern Europe	61	24	33,860
20	Guernsey	Northern Europe	78	30	—
21	Anguilla	Caribbean	91	35	—
22	Montserrat	Caribbean	102	39	—
23	Jersey	Northern Europe	116	45	—
24	Christmas Island	Australia & New Zealand	135	52	—
25	Wallis and Futuna	Polynesia	142	55	—
26	British Virgin Islands	Caribbean	151	58	38,985
27	Liechtenstein	Western Europe	160	62	39,846
28	Aruba	Caribbean	180	69	107,359
29	Marshall Islands	Micronesia	181	70	38,827
30	American Samoa	Polynesia	199	77	47,521

Rankings by total area (land + inland water) as published by the open world-countries package. "Share of land" is against Earth’s ~148,939,063 km² of land. Explore the full country directory, the largest countries list, and single-superlative records on World Extremes.