The Smallest Countries in the World

The world's tiniest sovereign states, by area.

From Vatican City and Monaco to the small island nations of the Caribbean and Pacific, these are the world's smallest sovereign states, ranked from smallest by total area.

#	Place	Area (sq mi)
1	Vatican City The world's smallest country, sovereign seat of the Catholic Church	0 sq mi 0 km²
2	Monaco A glittering city-state on the French Riviera	1 sq mi 2 km²
3	Nauru The world's smallest island republic	8 sq mi 21 km²
4	Tuvalu A low-lying nation on the front line of climate change	10 sq mi 26 km²
5	San Marino The world's oldest republic, perched on a single mountain in Italy	24 sq mi 61 km²
6	Liechtenstein A tiny Alpine principality between Switzerland and Austria	62 sq mi 160 km²
7	Marshall Islands Coral atolls between Hawaii and the Philippines	70 sq mi 181 km²
8	Saint Kitts and Nevis The smallest sovereign state in the Americas	101 sq mi 261 km²
9	Maldives A scattering of low coral atolls in the Indian Ocean	115 sq mi 298 km²
10	Malta A sun-baked archipelago fortress at the heart of the Mediterranean	122 sq mi 316 km²
11	Grenada The Spice Isle of nutmeg, rainforest, and reefs	133 sq mi 344 km²
12	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines A volcanic main isle scattered into a yachting paradise	150 sq mi 389 km²
13	Barbados The easternmost Caribbean isle, coral-built and outward-looking	166 sq mi 430 km²
14	Antigua and Barbuda A twin-island nation famed for 365 beaches	171 sq mi 442 km²
15	Seychelles A scattering of granite and coral in the open Indian Ocean	177 sq mi 459 km²

Figures are drawn from standard government and reference sources and shown in both imperial and metric units. See each entry for full details and citations. Browse all guides or open the explore map.