Countries In Countries: 3 Enclave Nations 🧐
Countries In Countries: 3 Enclave Nations 🧐
Only 3 countries exist entirely inside one other country. These are them... (🧐Map Facts Series)
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Countries In Countries: The Three Enclave Nations
Lesotho, San Marino, Vatican City
Maps and history have a love/hate relationship, and lines get drawn in strange ways.
One of the coolest examples is a country within a country. Out of 195 countries in the world, there are only 3 that exist completely within a different country. The official term for places like this is an enclave, which is a territory that is totally surrounded by a foreign territory.
Three countries are completely landlocked inside an another country – the only way in and out is through a foreign country. The 3 are:
Lesotho: The biggest is Kingdom of Lesotho, which is a small country that sits entirely inside of South Africa. It has 550 miles of border and about 2 million people. And fun fact: it’s the only country in the world that is entirely above 1000 meters (take that Nepal!).
San Marino: The next is San Marino, which sits entirely inside Italy. The whole country is 24 square miles and has about 30,000 people. It’s one of the wealthiest countries in the world per capita and it has two presidents with equal powers.
Vatican City: The last, and smallest, one is Vatican City. Vatican City is the seat of the Pope and the global Catholic Church. It’s a complex of buildings located within Rome Italy. At less than a fifth of a mile across and less than 1000 citizens, it is the smallest nation on earth, but it definitely punches way above its weight class.