Ranked data list
The smallest countries in the world, ranked by area
The 30 smallest of the 190 countries this site holds data for, in ascending square kilometres, with each one’s capital, population and the shape the drawing game actually scores. Two things get lost in most versions of this list: whether the entries are sovereign states, and what happens to an outline when there is almost no land left to draw.
The 30 smallest, area first
Ascending km². Pieces is how many separate shapes our outline of that country is made of, which is the part of this table that predicts how the drawing goes.
| # | Country | Area (km²) | Continent | Capital | Population | Pieces |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vatican City | 0.44 km² | Europe | Vatican City | 825 | 1 |
| 2 | Monaco | 2.02 km² | Europe | Monaco | 39 k | 1 |
| 3 | Nauru | 21 km² | Oceania | Yaren | 13 k | 1 |
| 4 | Tuvalu | 26 km² | Oceania | Funafuti | 12 k | 1 |
| 5 | San Marino | 61 km² | Europe | City of San Marino | 34 k | 1 |
| 6 | Liechtenstein | 160 km² | Europe | Vaduz | 38 k | 1 |
| 7 | Marshall Islands | 181 km² | Oceania | Majuro | 59 k | 5 |
| 8 | Saint Kitts and Nevis | 261 km² | North America | Basseterre | 53 k | 2 |
| 9 | Malta | 316 km² | Europe | Valletta | 503 k | 2 |
| 10 | Grenada | 344 km² | North America | St. George's | 112 k | 1 |
| 11 | Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | 389 km² | North America | Kingstown | 111 k | 3 |
| 12 | Barbados | 430 km² | North America | Bridgetown | 287 k | 1 |
| 13 | Antigua and Barbuda | 442 km² | North America | Saint John's | 97 k | 2 |
| 14 | Palau | 459 km² | Oceania | Ngerulmud | 18 k | 2 |
| 15 | Andorra | 468 km² | Europe | Andorra la Vella | 77 k | 1 |
| 16 | Saint Lucia | 616 km² | North America | Castries | 183 k | 1 |
| 17 | Micronesia | 702 km² | Oceania | Palikir | 114 k | 5 |
| 18 | Singapore | 710 km² | Asia | Singapore | 5.7 m | 1 |
| 19 | Tonga | 747 km² | Oceania | Nuku'alofa | 104 k | 3 |
| 20 | Dominica | 751 km² | North America | Roseau | 72 k | 1 |
| 21 | Bahrain | 765 km² | Asia | Manama | 1.6 m | 1 |
| 22 | Kiribati | 811 km² | Oceania | South Tarawa | 118 k | 14 |
| 23 | São Tomé and Príncipe | 964 km² | Africa | São Tomé | 215 k | 2 |
| 24 | Comoros | 1,862 km² | Africa | Moroni | 851 k | 3 |
| 25 | Luxembourg | 2,586 km² | Europe | Luxembourg | 620 k | 1 |
| 26 | Samoa | 2,842 km² | Oceania | Apia | 197 k | 2 |
| 27 | Cape Verde | 4,033 km² | Africa | Praia | 550 k | 8 |
| 28 | Trinidad and Tobago | 5,130 km² | North America | Port of Spain | 1.4 m | 2 |
| 29 | Brunei | 5,765 km² | Asia | Bandar Seri Begawan | 433 k | 2 |
| 30 | Cyprus | 9,251 km² | Asia | Nicosia | 1.2 m | 1 |
How small is small, in groups
The bottom of the table is not a smooth slope, it is a set of cliffs. Vatican City and Monaco are enclaves you could walk across; a step up sits the single-island atolls; another step up and you reach city-states with airports and skyscrapers. Grouped by threshold, with one comparator per group so the totals mean something:
| Group | Countries | Combined area (km²) | Combined population | Compare with |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 100 km² | 5 | 110 | 98 k | Liechtenstein |
| Under 1,000 km² | 23 | 9,626 | 9.6 m | Lebanon |
| Under 10,000 km² | 30 | 41,095 | 14.8 m | Switzerland |
| All 190 countries here | 190 | 130,789,943 | 7.62 bn | 0.01% of the list |
What happens to an outline when there is no land left
Every shape in this game is a Natural Earth 50m outline simplified down to a point budget before it is stored, and at the bottom of the size table that budget runs out before the border does. Vatican City’s outline ends up as 6 points — a closed blob, not a boundary. Monaco gets 7, Nauru 8, Singapore 9. At that resolution the drawing challenge collapses into “put a roundish shape roughly in the middle”, which is honest to say but useless as geography practice, and it is why the daily challenge never picks from this end of the list: 23 of the 23 countries under 1,000 km² are flagged as outside the core set the challenge draws on.
The counter-intuitive part is that small countries are not easy. Kiribati is 811 km² of scattered atolls and our outline of it falls into 14 separate pieces, which puts its measured detail of 15.98 above Russia’s 7.50. Fragmentation costs more than jaggedness does, because each piece is a positioning decision rather than a stroke.
| Country | Area (km²) | Detail | Pieces | Tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kiribati | 811 km² | 15.98 | 14 | hard |
| Marshall Islands | 181 km² | 14.96 | 5 | hard |
| Cape Verde | 4,033 km² | 12.78 | 8 | hard |
| Tonga | 747 km² | 8.81 | 3 | hard |
| Micronesia | 702 km² | 7.24 | 5 | hard |
| Comoros | 1,862 km² | 7.06 | 3 | hard |
| Saint Kitts and Nevis | 261 km² | 6.72 | 2 | hard |
| Samoa | 2,842 km² | 6.56 | 2 | hard |
Where the smallest countries are
Two clusters own the bottom of the table: the European micro-states, which are small because they survived being swallowed, and the oceanic and Caribbean island states, which are small because that is all the land there is. The 30 smallest split out like this.
| Continent | Countries here | Combined area (km²) | Smallest | Largest in group |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| North America | 8 | 8,363 | Saint Kitts and Nevis | Trinidad and Tobago |
| Oceania | 8 | 5,789 | Nauru | Samoa |
| Europe | 7 | 3,593 | Vatican City | Luxembourg |
| Asia | 4 | 16,491 | Singapore | Cyprus |
| Africa | 3 | 6,859 | São Tomé and Príncipe | Cape Verde |
The ten tiniest shapes, as the game holds them:
How we measure these figures
Areas come from the ISO country metadata joined into the game’s data file, values under 1,000 km² kept to two decimals. The one exception in the whole dataset is a disputed territory with no ISO record, whose area was measured from its Natural Earth 50m outline instead and flagged as measured. Capitals, landlocked status and neighbour lists come from the same join; population is the estimate shipped with the game; and piece and detail counts are taken from the simplified outlines, so they describe what you draw. Dependent territories are not in the dataset at all, which is what makes this a countries list rather than a territories list. More from the same pipeline: the largest countries by area, every capital city, the African ranking, and the hardest borders to draw.
Smallest countries in the world — questions
What is the smallest country in the world?
Vatican City, at 0.44 km² in our data — an enclave inside Rome, population 825. Monaco is next at 2.02 km², then Nauru at 21 km². Those three are separated by more than most people expect: Monaco is roughly 5 times Vatican City, and the Pacific atolls above them are separated from both by an order of magnitude.
Is Vatican City smaller than Monaco?
By a factor of about 5: 0.44 km² against 2.02 km². Both are stored to two decimals here because integer km² would round Vatican City down to zero, which is the single most common way a small-countries table gets quietly wrong.
What is the smallest island country?
Nauru at 21 km² — one raised coral island, 1 piece in our outline, about 13 k people. Tuvalu follows at 26 km² and is the smallest country made of more than one landmass that is still easy to draw; Kiribati, only a little bigger at 811 km², is a different problem entirely.
What is the least populated country?
Vatican City, with 825 in our dataset. Nauru, Tuvalu and the other Pacific entries are all under a hundred thousand, while Singapore breaks the pattern completely: 710 km² of land holding 5.7 m people, which is more residents than several much larger countries in our list.
Can you actually draw Vatican City in the game?
Yes, and it is trivially winnable: our outline of it is 6 points, because a shape that small arrives as a blob at 50m map resolution. Scoring scales and centres your stroke before comparing it, so absolute size never works against you. What does work against you is fragmentation — Marshall Islands is 5 separate pieces at 181 km², and every piece is another shape you have to place.
Why aren't Macau, Hong Kong or Gibraltar on this list?
They are not sovereign states, so they have no rows in our 190-country dataset — every entry here carries its own ISO country record, and dependent territories do not. A table that ranks them alongside countries has a different bottom end, which is why two sources can both be honest and still disagree about the third or fourth smallest thing on the list. This one is states only.
How many countries are smaller than 1,000 km²?
23 of the 190 in this dataset, covering 9,626 km² between them — less land than Lebanon alone at 10,452 km². Under 100 km² there are only 5, and under 10,000 km² the count reaches 30.
Which small countries are the hardest to draw?
Kiribati first, at 15.98 measured detail across 14 pieces, then Marshall Islands and Cape Verde. Their combined land would fit inside a mid-sized country without notice, but the scoring has to find every island in the right relationship to the others, which is a memory test rather than a drawing test.