Brunei 🇧🇳

Brunei is an independent state in South-Eastern Asia, and a member of the United Nations. In formal use it is Nation of Brunei, Abode of Peace. The capital is Bandar Seri Begawan.

Its territory runs to 5,765 km², which ranks it 174th of the 249 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind Palestine and just ahead of Trinidad and Tobago. For scale, it is about two thirds the size of Cyprus.

Some 462,721 people call it home, placing it 175th of 249 by population — between Cape Verde above it and Belize below. Within South-Eastern Asia alone it is the 10th largest of 11 and the 11th most populous.

The coordinates the dataset gives are 4.5° N, 114.7° E, which puts it in the northern hemisphere, roughly 501 km from the equator, in what geographers would call the equatorial belt.

Colombia, Cameroon and Guyana sit at almost exactly the same latitude on other parts of the globe.

Its land neighbours number 1: Malaysia.

Unlike its landlocked neighbours it reaches the sea directly, while also sharing land frontiers.

Density comes out at around 80 people per square kilometre, which makes it less crowded than the typical entry on this list. For comparison, the median entry on this list sits near 91 per square kilometre.

People from Brunei are called Bruneians.

Malay is the only official language. It shares that with Malaysia and Singapore.

Inside Asia it places 50th of 50 by population, and it accounts for under 1% of everyone living in South-Eastern Asia.

Put next to every other entry on this site, Brunei ranks 174th of 249 by area and 175th by population. That works out at less than a thousandth of a percent of the combined land area of all 249 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 Brunei in the size ordering are Palestine at 6,220 km² and Trinidad and Tobago at 5,130 km², against Brunei's 5,765 km². If you can already picture one of those, you can picture this one.

Density tells a different story from either raw figure. Brunei averages 80 people per square kilometre of total area, which makes it middling in density — 132nd of the 247 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.

Within South-Eastern Asia, Brunei is the least populous of the 11 entries listed here, and 10th by area. Timor-Leste is the next step up. Being the smallest of a group is not the same as being small in absolute terms — the subregional context is what gives the figure meaning.

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

• 🇹🇱 Timor-Leste
• 🇮🇩 Indonesia

Brunei does not have the Singapore dollar to itself. It is one of 2 entries on this site that use the currency, whose code is SGD, and the other one is 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 SGD travels further than you might expect.

Language reaches wider still. Malay is listed for 3 entries here, Brunei 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.

More than one currency circulates: Brunei dollar (BND) and Singapore dollar (SGD). It is issued for Brunei alone.

The top-level domain is .bn. Calls from overseas start with +673. Its ISO codes are bn and BRN, which is what most databases and flag files use.

Bandar Seri Begawan is the city to remember for this country.

It holds a seat at the United Nations, one of 192 entries here that do. The other 57 entries are territories, dependencies or observers, which is why totals on this site run to 249 rather than the familiar 195.