The Smallest Country in the World

Imagine a country where you don’t need a passport or visa to enter, soldiers from another country protect it and the population is around 800.

Vatican City

This tiny country occupies an area of just 44 hectares - 110 acres - less than half a square kilometre. Despite its size, the sacred enclave holds tremendous historical and cultural significance and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. Vatican City serves as the administrative centre of the Roman Catholic Church and the spiritual home of the world’s 1.1 billion catholics.

Many books have been written and many movies have been produced, but here are eight intriguing facts that you may not know.

• Vatican City has only officially existed since 1929. Before that, there were the Papal States, a huge area of Italy ruled by the pope for about one thousand years. It all ended in the 19th century with the unification of Italy as one nation in 1861. The Papacy and Italian authorities were at odds. Not so subtle, once you are aware, is the fact that many streets and squares around Vatican City were named by Roman urban planners after historical figures who were not popular with the pope. Take Piazza Risorgimento, for example, which is the name of the fight for Italian unification. There is a street named for pope hater, Col di Rienzo. In Campo de’Fiori, just across the river, you will find the solemn looking sculpture of Giordano Bruno who was burned in this piazza in 1600 by the Vatican. He was an Italian philosopher (former Catholic priest) and a free thinker, believing that the universe was infinite and that other solar systems existed.

• The Vatican has its own postal service, bank, publishing house, food store, pharmacy, railway station, electrical generating plant and two jail cells.

• It also has its own library, one of the oldest libraries on the planet. Founded in 1471, the library boasts 75,000 manuscripts and 1.1 million printed books that are stocked in 37 miles of stacks, many of which are held underground. It’s a very popular myth that the library is the depository for the largest porn collection in the world. Seriously, I did read that.

• The grand Saint Peter’s Basilica might be the most famous Christian place of worship in the world. It was completed in the 17th century, exactly 1,300 years after the first St. Peters was completed on this site. A team of rock star Renaissance and Baroque architects and artists helped to build the “new” St. Peters, including Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael and Bernini.

• A lot of the marble used to build St. Peters was stolen from the Colosseum. Pope Nicholas II had 2,500 wagon loads of marble brought over from the ancient stadium. Bernini stripped most of the bronze off the roof of the Pantheon.

• St. Peter’s Square is one of the most dramatic public spaces in the world. There are 284 columns supporting the two colonnades designed by Bernini and 140 statues of saints standing on the top. In the centre of the square is the massive 3,300 year old Egyptian obelisk, which took 800 people to erect in the late 16th century.

• In the early 16th century, Michelangelo was asked to paint something simple on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Better known as an architect at the time, he decided to challenge himself, resulting in the most famous fresco in the world. It took him four and a half years standing on 60 foot high scaffolding.

• The smallest army in the world protects the smallest country in the world. However, the duty of the trained soldiers is to protect the pope, not the people or Vatican City itself. Recruits must be male, Swiss, aged between 19 and 30, over 5’8” tall, unmarried and devout catholics with “an unblemished character”. They can get married after five years. Don’t let the brightly coloured red, yellow and blue uniforms complete with ruffled collars, puffy sleeves and feathered helmet fool you into thinking their purpose is purely decorative. The competition is fierce to be accepted as a Swiss Guard and the training is rigorous which includes anti-terrorism techniques. Many fail once they reach the intense psychological tests which are designed to ensure they have the mental capacity to adapt to life as a Swiss Guard. They earn about 1,200 euros a month ($2,000) and live in shared dorms. In free time, the soldiers are allowed to leave Vatican City.

On the 24th of December, 2024, Pope Francis opened the Holy Door of Saint Peter’s Basilica, thereby officially inaugurating the 2025 Jubilee of Hope, an historic event held every 25 years. The Jubilee concludes with the closing of the same Holy Door on 6th January, 2026.

Ci vediamo la prossima settimana.

Deb