Gibraltar 🇬🇮

Gibraltar is a territory in Southern Europe, and it is not a sovereign state in its own right. Unlike most entries, its formal name adds nothing to the short one. The capital is Gibraltar, the same name as the territory, which is the usual sign of a city-state.

The population is about 39,329, placing it 217th of 249 by population — between the British Virgin Islands above it and Monaco below. Measured only against its own subregion, it is 9th of 10 in size and 8th in population.

The land area is 6 km², which ranks it 247th of the 249 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind Tokelau and just ahead of Monaco. Put next to a territory most people can picture, it is about three times the size of Monaco.

Gibraltar does not hold a United Nations seat of its own. It is administered as a dependency or overseas territory rather than as a sovereign state, which is why it sits outside the 192 member states while still appearing among the 249 entries on this site.

Not holding a UN seat is not the same as having no self-government, and the administrative details make that clear. Gibraltar has 5 of the five markers of separate administration tracked on this page — its own currency, its own dialling code, its own internet domain, its own iso codes and a designated capital. In day-to-day terms it is run substantially as its own jurisdiction.

• Its own currencyGIP
• Its own dialling code+350
• Its own internet domain.gi
• Its own ISO codesgi / GIB
• A designated capitalGibraltar

The coordinates the dataset gives are 36.1° N, 5.3° W, which puts it in the northern hemisphere, roughly 4,022 km from the equator, in what geographers would call temperate latitudes.

China, the United States and Japan sit at almost exactly the same latitude on other parts of the globe.

It borders 1 neighbour: Spain.

With both a coast and land borders, it has the trade options a landlocked territory does not.

Population divided by land area gives roughly 6,555 people per square kilometre, which makes it among the most densely populated places on earth. For comparison, the median entry on this list sits near 91 per square kilometre.

Officially it is monolingual: English. Another 90 entries list English too — among them American Samoa, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda and Australia.

Someone from Gibraltar is a Gibraltar.

Against Europe as a whole it is the 48th most populous of 53 entries, and it accounts for under 1% of everyone living in Southern Europe.

The Gibraltar pound (GIP) is used only in Gibraltar among the 249 entries on this site. Its own currency is one of the clearest markers of an economy that sets its own monetary policy rather than importing somebody else's.

Language reaches wider still. English is listed for 91 entries here, Gibraltar 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.

Zoom in from the world to Southern Europe and Gibraltar sits 8th of 10 by population and 9th by area. Its immediate company in that ordering is Andorra just above and San Marino just below, which is a more honest comparison set than a global league table.

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

• 🇦🇩 Andorra
• 🇸🇲 San Marino
• 🇮🇹 Italy

The currency is the Gibraltar pound (£, GIP). It is issued for Gibraltar alone.

Its internet country code is .gi. To phone it from abroad you dial +350. Standard country codes: gi and GIB.

Gibraltar is not a UN member state. The dataset does not record which state administers it, so this page does not guess. Of the 249 entries here, 57 are territories or observers rather than member states.