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Microstate

A microstate or ministate is a sovereign state having a very small population or very little land area, but usually both. Perhaps the best known examples of microstates include Liechtenstein, Monaco, and Vatican City. Microstates have a disproportionately-large influence in the United Nations General Assembly due to the one state, one vote power structure.

The smallest fully sovereign microstate is Vatican City, with 911 citizens as of July 2003 and an area of only 0.44 km²^[1]. In Rome, Italy, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM) (not to be confused with Malta, a microstate in the Mediterranean) is an effectively non-territorial sovereign entity that might also be considered to be a microstate; its sovereignty is recognized by 105 states, 100 of which have entered into full diplomatic relations,^[2] but unlike the Vatican City state it has no substantive territorial base (the SMOM's only property, its headquarters buildings, holds extraterritorial status, similar to an embassy building). Neither the Vatican nor SMOM are members of the United Nations, although both have permanent observer status at the UN, Vatican City as "non-member state", SMOM as "other entity".

Microstates should not be confused with micronations, which are not recognized as sovereign states. Special territories like the Channel Islands without full sovereignty are also not considered as microstates.

List of sovereign states with an area less than 1000 km²

See also

• European microstates
• List of countries by population
• List of countries and outlying territories by total area
• Micronation

References