Malta 🇲🇹

Malta is an independent state in Southern Europe, and a member of the United Nations. The long form of the name is Republic of Malta. The capital is Valletta.

Its territory runs to 316 km², which ranks it 214th of the 249 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind the Caribbean Netherlands and just ahead of the Maldives. That makes it a little larger than the Maldives.

Some 568,847 people call it home, placing it 172nd of 249 by population — between Western Sahara above it and the Maldives below. Among the 10 entries in Southern Europe it ranks 7th by area and 6th by population.

Put next to every other entry on this site, Malta ranks 214th of 249 by area and 172nd 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 Malta in the size ordering are Caribbean Netherlands at 328 km² and Maldives at 300 km², against Malta's 316 km². If you can already picture one of those, you can picture this one.

Density tells a different story from either raw figure. Malta averages 1,800 people per square kilometre of total area, which makes it one of the most densely settled places on the whole list — 8th 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.

Plotted on a globe it falls at 35.8° north, 14.6° east, which puts it in the northern hemisphere, roughly 3,989 km from the equator, in what geographers would call temperate latitudes.

Follow that same latitude east or west and you reach China, Japan and South Korea — places that share its distance from the equator but little else.

It shares no land border with anyone. That puts it among the 85 entries of 249 here with no land neighbours, a group made up mostly of islands and island groups.

Malta 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 Tunisia, roughly 550 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.

Being surrounded by water rather than by neighbours pushes a country's relationships outward. Tunisia sits in a different world region from Malta yet ranks among its closest geographic company — the kind of pairing that only shows up once you stop thinking in continents.

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 Malta's dialling code and internet domain are worth knowing before you travel.

Population divided by land area gives roughly 1,800 people per square kilometre, which makes it among the most densely populated places on earth. Half the entries in this dataset fall below roughly 91 per square kilometre.

The demonym is Maltese, so residents are Maltese.

It recognises 2 languages: English and Maltese. Maltese is listed for no other entry in this dataset, which makes it effectively unique to Malta. English, the first listed, is shared with 90 other entries worldwide.

Inside Europe it places 40th of 53 by population, and it accounts for under 1% of everyone living in Southern Europe.

Zoom in from the world to Southern Europe and Malta sits 6th of 10 by population and 7th by area. Its immediate company in that ordering is Cyprus just above and Andorra 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.

• 🇨🇾 Cyprus
• 🇦🇩 Andorra
• 🇮🇹 Italy

Malta does not have the Euro to itself. It is one of 38 entries on this site that use the currency, whose code is EUR, 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 EUR travels further than you might expect.

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

It uses the Euro (€, EUR). That is a shared currency: 37 other entries use it, including Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria and Croatia.

Valletta is the seat of government and the answer most quizzes are looking for.

The top-level domain is .mt. The international dialling code is +356. In ISO terms it is mt in two letters and MLT in three.

Malta is one of the 192 UN member states in this dataset. The other 57 entries are territories, dependencies or observers, which is why totals on this site run to 249 rather than the familiar 195.