Vatican City

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Country overview: 

Short nameVATICAN CITY
ISO codeVA
FIPS codeVT
LanguageItalian (it), Latin (la)
Time zone+1~
CapitalVatican City

 

Vatican City is widely recognized as sovereign territory under the rule of the Pope. After the reunification of Italy in the 19th century, this area, plus the Lateran Palace and Castel Gandolfo, was all that was left of the Pope's temporal domain. A treaty of 1929-02-11 formalized the relationship between the Vatican City and Italy.

Other names of country: 

  1. Danish: Vatikanstaten
  2. Dutch: Heilige Stoel, Vaticaanstad, Staat Vaticaanstad (formal)
  3. English: Holy See (formal), Vatican City State (formal)
  4. Finnish: Vatikaani, Vatikaanivaltio
  5. French: Saint-Siège m, Vatican m, État m de la Cité f du Vatican m
  6. German: Vatikanstadt, Heilige Stuhl, Heiliger Stuhl m, Vatikan m, Staat m Vatikanstadt f
  7. Icelandic: Vatíkanið, Páfagarður
  8. Italian: Città del Vaticano, Stato m della Città f del Vaticano m (formal)
  9. Norwegian: Vatikanstaten
  10. Portuguese: Cidade do Vaticano, Santa Sé f, Estado m da Cidade f do Vaticano m (formal)
  11. Russian: Ватикан
  12. Spanish: Vaticano, Ciudad f del Vaticano m, Santa Sede f
  13. Swedish: Vatikanstaten
  14. Turkish: Vatikan Şehri Devleti (formal)

Origin of name: 

named for the hill and surrounding area called Vaticanus by the Ancient Romans, from Latin vates: diviner

Primary subdivisions: 

Vatican City has no known administrative divisions.

CountryHASCPopulationArea(km.²)Area(mi.²)Capital
Vatican CityVA.VA82900Vatican City

Postal code: 

The postal code for Vatican City is 00120 in the Italian system.

Territorial extent: 

The Vatican City consists of less than half a square kilometer, surrounded by Rome, making it the smallest country in the world in area.

The UN LOCODE page  for Vatican City lists locations in the country, some of them with their latitudes and longitudes, some with their ISO 3166-2 codes for their subdivisions. This information can be put together to approximate the territorial extent of subdivisions.

Population history:

The Vatican City de jure population (citizens) includes a substantial number of papal ambassadors, or nuncios, who live elsewhere. The de facto population (residents) includes quite a few non-citizens who are there on church business. In most countries, those components of the population are a very small fraction of the population, but they are large in relation to the Vatican's total. Figures shown here are probably de facto.

CensusPopulation
1932-04-151,006
1937741
1947-03-31940
1948-04-30890
1975-07724
1991771
2009-07-01826

 

Sources include Encyclopædia Britannica World Atlas, United Nations Demographic Yearbook, and the Merriam-Webster Geographical Dictionary. All populations are described as census results except for 1975, which is an estimate.

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