What are the 10 smallest countries in Europe?

In 2020 this list has not changed. The only real difference to the current map of Europe is that the UK has left the European Union because of Brexit.

This is a list of the ten (10) smallest countries within Europe. What constitutes a country can be debated and while this list is meant to be educational. It is also meant to be fun and is not sticking to the strict description of country.

• Vatican City
• Monaco
• San Marino
• Liechtenstein
• Plus 6 more…

1. Vatican City

Technically Vatican City is considered a ‘sovereign city-state’ and is only 0.44 km2 in size. Not only is this the smallest country in Europe but also one of the smallest in the world. This is a country within a city. The Vatican is situated in the City of Rome. It is isn’t even big enough to be considered a suburb. That gives you some idea about it’s size. The head of the country is the Pope and population of about 800 people is mostly made up of clergy and supporting staff.

2. Monaco

Monaco is famous around the world as the centre of  luxury, opulence and gambling in Europe. It is only 1.95 km2 and is formally known as the Principality of Monaco. Like Vatican City it is also is a “sovereign city-state”. It is completely surrounded by France and has access to the Mediterranean Sea. The head of state is known as the prince of Monaco and it has a population of approximately 38,000 people.

3. San Marino

The Republic of San Marino is only 61 km2. It is the oldest surviving sovereign state and constitutional republic in the world. It has a population of about 31,000 people and is a enclaved microstate surrounded by Italy.

4. Liechtenstein

the Principality of Liechtenstein is 160 km2 in area and has a population of about 37,000 people. One interesting fact about Liechtenstein is that it has the highest gross domestic product per person in the world. It is also infamously known as a tax haven. Recently tax avoiders who have been using Liechtenstein’s services have had their names leaked. This seems have facilitated a move by Liechtenstein to move away from that tax haven status.

5. Malta

Malta is made up of three different islands in the Mediterranean . The islands of Malta, Gozo and Comino. Situated south of Sicily, the islands get very mild weather. It 316 km2 and has a population of about 418, 000 citizens. The capital of Malta is Valletta, which has a population of about 7000 citizens.

6. Andorra

Andorra is situated on the border of Spain and France and has a population of about 85,000 people. It is a tax haven and known for cheap duty free goods. It is also known for it’s ski resorts. Land area is 468 km2 and has been an independent principality since 1278.

7. Luxembourg

Luxembourg is a Grand Duchy that is situated on the borders of France, Belgium and Germany with a area of 2,586 km2. This landlocked country has a population of about 530,000 individuals. It has three official languages French, German and Luxembourgish.

8. Cyprus

Cyprus is an Island off the coast of Turkey which covers 9,251 km2. It has had a very chequered recent past, where Turkey and Greece fought a war to control it. These days it is relatively peaceful and is a tourist Mecca. It is peppered with ancient monuments and sites, so history buffs are catered for. It has also some of the best beaches in the Mediterranean and for something different the visitor can go have a look at the demilitarized zone (the border between the Turkish and Greek areas).

9. Kosovo

At the time of writing this article Kosovo was Europe’s newest country and at 10,887 km2 is the second largest in this group of countries. Kosovo seceded from Serbia in 2008 although Russia and Serbia do not recognize the newly formed republic. The mostly Albanian population is friendly and very welcoming of tourists. The official languages are Albanian and Serbian, although many of Kosovo’s younger citizens understand English.

10. Montenegro

The small country of Montenegro is yet another former member of the Yugoslavian republic. At 13,812 km2 it is the largest of this group of small countries. A beautiful little country nestled on the Adriatic coast. You can be dipping your feet in the Adriatic one moment and an hour later you are skiing.

What are the Transcontinental Countries of Europe and Asia?

There are 4 countries that are considered transcontinental between Europe and Asia. These are The Russian Federation, The Republic of Turkey, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, ( Georgia ).

We are taking the literal meaning of Transcontinental means a country’s landmass is contiguously located in more than one continent. There are more nations that are non-contiguous transcontinental countries like Greenland which is a territory of Denmark. However there is a body of water that separates the two parts and therefore disqualifies it from this list.

Russia

Being the largest country in the world you would expect that Russia would span a number of continents. Russia is bordered by 16 countries 8 of which are European and 8 which are considered Asian. Russia even has a transcontinental city. The city of Orenburg has a footprint that spans both Asia and Europe.

Countries that border Russia :

Number	Country	Length of Border (KM)
1	Kazakhstan	7,512
2	China	4,209
3	Mongolia	3,485
4	Ukraine	1,925
5	Finland	1,271
6	Belarus	1,239
7	Georgia	875
8	Azerbaijan	372
9	Estonia	294
10	Latvia	270
11	Lithuania	266
12	Abkhazia	255
13	Poland	204
14	Norway	195
15	South Ossetia	70
16	North Korea	17

Turkey

Being the confluence of many cultures Turkey has always been the crossroads between what is traditionally considered the East and the West. The Bosporus straights that cuts Istanbul in half is also considered one of the meeting points between Europe and Asia. The magical city of Istanbul is probably the most famous transcontinental city. Canakkale City in Turkey also spans two continents, Europe and Asia. There are 8 countries that border Turkey. Two of which are European countries this being Greece and Azerbaijan.  Azerbaijan is also considered a transcontinental country.

Countries that border Turkey :

1. Armenia
2. Azerbaijan
3. Bulgaria
4. Georgia
5. Greece
6. Iran
7. Iraq
8. Syria

Kazakhstan

Most western people would not know that Kazakhstan makes it onto this list. Kazakhstan is a Central Asian country but it does have a small part in Eastern Europe. It barely makes it onto the list of countries that span across Europe and Asia. There are two provinces that a firmly transcontinental, they are West Kazakhstan and Atyrau.

Countries that border Kazakhstan :

1. Russia
2. Uzbekistan
3. China
4. Kyrgyzstan
5. Turkmenistan

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan is another country that is often associated with Europe. However a small part of the country falls north of the Caucasus mountains and thus within Europe. So technically although by the slimmest of margins it is a transcontinental country that spans both Europe and Asia.

Countries that border Azerbaijan :

1. Russia
2. Georgia
3. Armenia
4. Iran
5. Turkey

Georgia

If Azerbaijan can make it onto this list then most experts feel Georgia should. While technically not transcontinental the only thing that separates Georgia from Europe proper is the Black Sea. The Caucus mountains are another one of those arbitrary borders that were written into the rule books by early t European geographers. The Georgian people adhere much more to European traits than Asian and look more Hungarian than  Mongolian or South West Asian. Georgia is truly a conundrum. The borders of Europe are becoming more flexible as time passes, so it is possible that Georgia will become properly transcontinental in the not to distant future.

1. Russia
2. Azerbaijan
3. Turkey
4. Armenia

There are many Non-Contiguous Transcontinental Nations

Greece, Cyprus, France, Denmark, Portugal and Spain are all Non-Contiguous Transcontinental Nations. They either have overseas territories or as in the case of Cyprus a disputed military border that makes them nations that spread across multiple landmasses.

Countries of Europe

The United Nations officially recognizes 44 countries in Europe. Below we have a table which shows a full list of the countries and the capital cities  of Europe in population order. There are a few countries that did not make the list that possibly could have. These being Georgia, Armenia. Until recently Turkey was looking like a candidate to at least become part of the EU if not a part of Europe proper. In 2019 when this article was written that prospect is looking a lot less likely.

There are 4 dependant territories that aren’t listed below, They are the Channel Islands, Gibraltar, Faeroe Islands and the Isle of Man. The other Country that is not listed is Cyprus. It has a special position as it spans both Europe and Asia with one half being Greek and the other half being Turkish. The territories are still under dispute since the Turkish invasion of the island in 1974.

To see how they all the countries fit together go to our latest political  map of Europe. This map will show all the countries listed below but will also show the countries that are missing from the list as per the explanation above. In future articles we will be splitting up the countries of Europe into their separate regions. These being Southern Europe, Norther Europe, Eastern Europe and Western Europe.

Russia	143,895,551	Moscow
Germany	82,438,639	Berlin
United Kingdom	66,959,016	London
France	65,480,710	Paris
Italy	59,216,525	Rome
Spain	46,441,049	Madrid
Ukraine	43,795,220	Kyiv (also known as Kiev)
Poland	38,028,278	Warsaw
Romania	19,483,360	Bucharest
Netherlands	17,132,908	Amsterdam
Belgium	11,562,784	Brussels
Greece	11,124,603	Athens
Czech Republic	10,630,589	Prague
Portugal	10,254,666	Lisbon
Sweden	10,053,135	Stockholm
Hungary	9,655,361	Budapest
Belarus	9,433,874	Minsk
Austria	8,766,201	Vienna
Serbia	8,733,407	Belgrade
Switzerland	8,608,259	Bern
Bulgaria	6,988,739	Sofia
Denmark	5,775,224	Copenhagen
Finland	5,561,389	Helsinki
Slovakia	5,450,987	Bratislava
Norway	5,400,916	Oslo
Ireland	4,847,139	Dublin
Croatia	4,140,148	Zagreb
Moldova	4,029,750	Chisinau
Bosnia and Herzegovina	3,501,774	Sarajevo
Albania	2,938,428	Tirana
Lithuania	2,864,459	Vilnius
North Macedonia	2,086,720	(FYROM) Skopje
Slovenia	2,081,900	Ljubljana
Latvia	1,911,108	Riga
Estonia	1,303,798	Tallinn
Montenegro	629,355	Podgorica
Luxembourg	596,992	Luxembourg (city)
Malta	433,245	Valletta
Iceland	340,566	Reykjavik
Andorra	77,072	Andorra la Vella
Monaco	39,102	Monaco
Liechtenstein	38,404	Vaduz
San Marino	33,683	San Marino
Holy See	799	Vatican City

Through out history the countries of Europe has been very changeable and fluid. There have been times when there have been as few as 16 countries. In the past the Ottoman Turks had taken huge swathes of Europe and formulated them into one country. Although those countries were under a Turkish/Asian empire they were still technically considered part of Europe. The Austro-Hungarian empire also consolidated large parts of Europe into one political entity. Although Europe has been relatively stable of late borders are always fluid. A good example of this is what is happening with the “Brexit” debate in the EU. Borders will have to once again be redrawn as the Irish republic stays in the EU but NortherN Ireland leaves. Stay tuned to MapofEurope.com to keep you up to date.

Click on the map of European undersea cables above to enlarge

Not much has changed in the world of undersea fibre optic cables in 2018. The map above is a snap shot from Submarinecablemap.com a great resource that keeps up to date on all the undersea cables that are being built around the world. The longest continuous undersea cable fibre optic cable actually goes from Europe to South Korea and stretches for 38624 kilometres.

While this map probably won’t interest everyone, it is one of those maps we like to throw into the mix for educational purposes. These cables keep the internet flowing and without the internet this site wouldn’t exist.

Europe Map before World War 1

Here we have a map of Europe before the break out of WW1. As you can see there are some Countries that have remained relatively the same. Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Spain, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands and Italy to name a few.

What is different is that there a number of Empires also on the map. These Empires do seem to encroach on existing countries. A few examples are The Austro-Hungarian empire has at this stage swallowed Croatia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The German empire has been pushed into parts of what is considered modern Denmark and also controls large parts of Poland. The Russian empire controls all of Finland, Parts of Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Moldova, Georgia, Latvia and Estonia. The Otton Empire, by this stage has been pushed back into Turkey and is actually an Ally of the German empire in the First World War.

The other thing we can say that stands out on this map which you won’t find on a modern map is that, what is now the Republic of Ireland is part of the United Kingdom.

We collated income inequality stats into a graph and a map of Europe. This highlights which countries have income inequality issues. Not all European countries have been included. Notables like Russia did not have the data available as of time of publishing.

The formula that is used to derive the results in this article is “Income quintile share ratio”. This is the ratio of total income received by the 20 % of the population with the highest income (top quintile) to that received by the 20 % of the population with the lowest income (lowest quintile). Income must be understood as equivalised disposable income.
maybe swap the map and the graph i make the graph the featured image.

Bar Graph of Income Inequality Across Europe 2016-2017

The above graph and map is based on the table below.

Table of Income Inequality Across European Countries.

Country	2016	2017
Iceland	3.4	3.3
Czech Republic	3.5	3.5
Slovenia	3.6	3.6
Slovakia	3.5	3.6
Finland	3.6	3.6
Norway	3.5	3.7
Belgium	3.8	3.8
Netherlands	3.8	3.9
Denmark	4.1	4.1
Austria	4	4.1
Malta	4.2	4.2
France	4.3	4.3
Hungary	4.3	4.3
Sweden	4.1	4.3
Ireland	4.5	4.4
Switzerland	4.5	4.4
Germany	4.8	4.6
Poland	4.9	4.8
Cyprus	5.2	4.9
Croatia	5.2	5
Luxembourg	4.3	5
United Kingdom	5.2	5.1
Estonia	6.2	5.6
Portugal	6	5.9
Latvia	6.5	6.2
Italy	5.8	6.3
Greece	6.5	6.6
Spain	6.9	6.6
Macedonia	6.6	6.6
Lithuania	7.5	7.1
Romania	8.3	7.2
Bulgaria	7.1	7.9
Serbia	9	9.7

 

Thanks to Eurostats for compiling these numbers.

Top 40 European Economies 2018

Here we have a table of the top 40 European countries ranked by Gross Domestic Product. This doesn’t only include European Union Countries but all the countries that are considered part of the continent of Europe.

Some interesting takeaways from this years European GDP figures are the following:

• Romania went up one place to become the 16th largest economy in the European Union (EU) in 2017. In the full list of countries that are considered part of Europe it is at 19th place.
• Russia is still going backwards but that doesn’t seem to be affecting president Putin’s popularity. he won the election easily.
• The Czech Republic is still growing strong, it also surpassed Greece in 2017 but this was largely expected unlike Romania.
• Balkan countries like Croatia that have been hit rather hard in the last few years seem to be on their way to recovery.

2018 Rank	Country	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
1st	Germany	3,761.142	3,545.946	3,753.687	3,885.440	3,365.293	3,494.898	3,684.816	4,211.635
2nd	United Kingdom	2,611.108	2,655.458	2,721.489	2,945.394	2,858.482	2,649.893	2,624.529	2,936.286
3rd	France	2,865.304	2,682.900	2,809.390	2,843.673	2,420.163	2,488.284	2,583.560	2,925.096
4th	Italy	2,278.376	2,073.972	2,130.997	2,141.937	1,815.759	1,858.913	1,937.894	2,181.970
5th	Russia	2,031.768	2,170.145	2,230.624	2,030.973	1,326.016	1,267.754	1,527.469	1,719.900
6th	Spain	1,489.381	1,340.689	1,369.690	1,383.537	1,199.715	1,252.163	1,313.951	1,506.439
7th	Netherlands	894.576	829.406	866.951	881.033	750.696	769.930	825.745	945.327
8th	Switzerland	696.528	665.898	685.871	712.050	664.603	651.770	678.575	741.688
9th	Poland	524.104	496.687	526.031	546.644	474.893	473.501	524.886	614.190
10th	Sweden	563.110	543.881	579.526	570.137	492.618	512.748	538.575	600.771
11th	Belgium	528.721	499.129	524.970	534.672	454.687	465.248	494.733	562.229
12th	Austria	429.493	407.801	428.456	437.123	374.124	387.299	416.845	477.672
13th	Norway	498.157	509.705	522.349	500.244	389.482	366.873	396.457	443.252
14th	Ireland	237.990	222.089	232.150	246.438	238.031	254.596	333.994	385.142
15th	Denmark	341.498	322.277	335.878	340.806	294.951	301.784	324.484	369.760
16th	Finland	273.925	256.849	268.281	271.165	229.671	234.578	253.244	289.557
17th	Czech Republic	227.307	206.751	208.796	205.658	181.858	185.269	213.189	251.577
18th	Portugal	245.120	216.488	224.983	230.012	199.077	205.085	218.064	248.891
19th	Romania	186.113	172.041	191.598	199.950	177.315	181.944	211.315	245.590
20th	Greece	289.068	249.663	242.306	238.023	195.320	194.594	200.690	226.774
21st	Hungary	139.447	126.825	133.424	137.104	120.636	117.729	132.034	163.541
22nd	Ukraine	163.307	175.707	179.572	130.660	90.524	83.550	109.321	119.134
23rd	Slovakia	97.621	92.799	97.743	99.971	86.629	89.797	95.938	111.483
24th	Luxembourg	59.010	56.323	60.150	62.395	57.423	60.176	62.393	72.461
25th	Bulgaria	55.799	52.613	54.517	55.837	48.957	49.364	56.943	64.781
26th	Croatia	62.172	56.484	57.849	57.159	48.850	49.928	54.516	61.056
27th	Belarus	59.735	63.615	71.710	76.139	54.609	45.887	54.436	59.246
28th	Slovenia	51.299	46.288	48.005	49.506	42.768	43.791	48.868	56.933
29th	Lithuania	43.478	42.828	46.426	48.232	41.267	43.024	47.263	54.352
30th	Serbia	46.488	40.749	45.520	43.866	36.513	37.381	41.471	48.279
31st	Latvia	28.488	28.343	30.838	31.970	27.048	28.177	30.319	35.915
32nd	Estonia	22.824	22.673	24.888	25.953	22.704	23.476	25.973	30.821
33rd	Iceland	14.666	14.183	15.330	16.693	16.718	18.633	23.909	29.109
34th	Bosnia and Herzegovina	18.318	16.906	17.852	17.977	15.794	16.324	18.058	20.340
35th	Albania	12.891	12.345	12.916	13.262	11.543	12.269	13.181	15.289
36th	Malta	9.604	9.289	10.056	10.582	9.801	10.341	12.543	14.873
37th	Macedonia	10.659	9.751	10.774	11.342	9.922	10.424	11.366	13.085
38th	Moldova	7.018	7.283	7.985	7.944	6.414	6.084	8.085	9.202
39th	Montenegro	4.500	4.048	4.419	4.462	4.039	4.182	4.764	5.547
40th	San Marino	2.056	1.802	1.802	1.786	1.566	1.569	1.636	1.809

This great little map shows just how wooded the countries of Europe are. One of the general trends we can see is that the northern countries of Europe tend to have more trees. Although there are a few exceptions one being Portugal and some of the Baltic countries like Slovenia and Croatia.

The most heavily forested countries in Europe are Finland, Sweden and the aforementioned Slovenia. there are some notable mentions like Montenegro, Russia, Albania and Estonia.

As would be expected, Iceland has a very low concentration of trees. Due to it being a country of mostly volcanic activity, topped with ice and snow. The countries that are a bit of a surprise for having such a low tree population are England, Scotland, Whales and Ireland. When thinking of these countries you generally conjure up images of green countryside, although the green in this case must be hedges, plains and farmland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here at MapOfEurope.com we are big fans of Google Earth and Google Maps. While we like the static nature of our maps, especially for quick reference. We recognize that the interactive nature of both Google Earth and Google Maps can be at times invaluable. Recently we were looking at the map of Europe on both Google Earth and Google Maps and thought wouldn’t it be handy to have a static version of both. So we did just that, we took screenshots of the Google map and have uploaded them to the site. While they are not detailed maps, they are handy for a very quick reference. They show most of the relevant countries.

If this proves popular we will even do static maps of all the individual countries of Europe. We might even extend this to the rest of the world. So stay tuned. If there are any particular countries that you are interested in seeing in this format? let us know. We are happy to help.

With the possible conflict between Russia and The Ukraine over the Crimean peninsula. Map of Europe has decided to put up a large map of the region. so that you can get some sense of how close these nations are to each other.

If you feel there are some other maps that would be beneficial in explaining how these countries relate. Please do not hesitate to contact us. We are only to happy to help.