Antigua and Barbuda 🇦🇬

Antigua and Barbuda is an independent state in the Caribbean, and a member of the United Nations. Unlike most entries, its formal name adds nothing to the short one. The capital is Saint John's.

Its territory runs to 442 km², which ranks it 206th of the 250 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind Curaçao and just ahead of Barbados. For scale, it is around a quarter larger than Malta.

Some 93,772 people call it home, placing it 202nd of 250 by population — between Saint Vincent and the Grenadines above it and the Isle of Man below. Among the 28 entries in the Caribbean it ranks 14th by area and 17th by population.

Put next to every other entry on this site, Antigua and Barbuda ranks 206th of 250 by area and 202nd by population. That works out at less than a thousandth of a percent of the combined land area of all 250 entries and less than a thousandth of a percent of their combined population. Those denominators matter: this list includes territories and dependencies as well as UN member states, so a rank here is not the same as a rank among sovereign countries.

For a sense of scale, the entries immediately either side of Antigua and Barbuda in the size ordering are Curaçao at 444 km² and Barbados at 430 km², against Antigua and Barbuda's 442 km². If you can already picture one of those, you can picture this one.

Density tells a different story from either raw figure. Antigua and Barbuda averages 212 people per square kilometre of total area, which makes it densely settled by global standards — 70th of the 248 entries that have both a population and a measured area. Total area includes inland water, so the true figure for habitable land is higher than this.

The coordinates the dataset gives are 17.1° N, 61.8° W, which puts it in the northern hemisphere, roughly 1,898 km from the equator, in what geographers would call tropical latitudes.

Niger, Mali and Vietnam sit at almost exactly the same latitude on other parts of the globe.

It shares no land border with anyone. That puts it among the 85 entries of 250 here with no land neighbours, which shapes how it trades and who it deals with.

Antigua and Barbuda has no land border with any country, which changes what "nearby" means. Measured centre to centre in a straight line, the closest other entry on this site is Montserrat, roughly 55 km away. These are approximate distances between representative points, not the shortest crossing between two shorelines, so treat them as a sense of scale rather than a sailing chart.

No land border also means no land crossing: everything and everyone arrives by sea or by air. That single fact drives a lot of what follows on this page, from how goods reach the shops to why Antigua and Barbuda's dialling code and internet domain are worth knowing before you travel.

Density comes out at around 212 people per square kilometre, which makes it densely populated. The median across all 250 entries here is about 90 per square kilometre.

The one official language is English. English is one of the widely shared official languages here, listed by 90 other entries including American Samoa, Anguilla, Australia and the Bahamas.

Someone from Antigua and Barbuda is an Antiguan, Barbudan.

Inside the Americas it places 40th of 56 by population, and it accounts for under 1% of everyone living in the Caribbean.

Zoom in from the world to Caribbean and Antigua and Barbuda sits 17th of 28 by population and 14th by area. Its immediate company in that ordering is Saint Vincent and the Grenadines just above and Cayman Islands just below, which is a more honest comparison set than a global league table.

Haiti is the largest of the group by population, and every entry in Caribbean has its own page here if you want to work through the whole neighbourhood rather than one country at a time.

• 🇻🇨 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
• 🇰🇾 Cayman Islands
• 🇭🇹 Haiti

Antigua and Barbuda does not have the Eastern Caribbean dollar to itself. It is one of 8 entries on this site that use the currency, whose code is XCD, and the others include listed below. A shared currency usually points at something real — a monetary union, a currency board, a former colonial administration, or a small economy pegging itself to a large neighbour's money — and it means a price quoted in XCD travels further than you might expect.

Language reaches wider still. English is listed for 91 entries here, Antigua and Barbuda among them, so a visitor who speaks it can be understood across a large part of the map. Shared language tends to outlive the empires, trade routes and migrations that spread it, which is why the linguistic map and the political one rarely line up.

Money there is the Eastern Caribbean dollar ($, XCD). That is a shared currency: 7 other entries use it, including Anguilla, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat and Saint Kitts and Nevis.

Websites there use the .ag domain. To phone it from abroad you dial +1268. Standard country codes: ag and ATG.

If a quiz asks for the capital of Antigua and Barbuda, the answer is Saint John's.

Antigua and Barbuda is one of the 193 UN member states in this dataset. The other 57 entries are territories, dependencies or observers, which is why totals on this site run to 250 rather than the familiar 195.