Micronesia 🇫🇲

Micronesia is an independent state in Micronesia, and a member of the United Nations. Treaties and official documents call it Federated States of Micronesia. Its seat of government is Palikir.

It is home to roughly 113,160 people, placing it 195th of 249 by population — between Grenada above it and Aruba below. Among the 7 entries in Micronesia it ranks 2nd by area and 3rd by population.

The land area is 702 km², which ranks it 196th of the 249 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind Singapore and just ahead of Saint Lucia. That makes it almost exactly the same size as Singapore.

Put next to every other entry on this site, Micronesia ranks 196th of 249 by area and 195th 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 Micronesia in the size ordering are Singapore at 710 km² and Saint Lucia at 616 km², against Micronesia's 702 km². If you can already picture one of those, you can picture this one.

Density tells a different story from either raw figure. Micronesia averages 161 people per square kilometre of total area, which makes it middling in density — 83rd 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 6.9° north, 158.3° east, which puts it in the northern hemisphere, roughly 770 km from the equator, in what geographers would call the equatorial belt.

Follow that same latitude east or west and you reach Ethiopia, Venezuela and the Central African Republic — places that share its distance from the equator but little else.

No land border connects it to another country. That puts it among the 85 entries of 249 here with no land neighbours, a group made up mostly of islands and island groups.

Micronesia 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 Marshall Islands, roughly 1,100 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. United States Minor Outlying Islands sits in a different world region from Micronesia 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 Micronesia's dialling code and internet domain are worth knowing before you travel.

Spread across 702 km², that works out at about 161 people per square kilometre, which makes it more crowded than the typical entry on this list. Half the entries in this dataset fall below roughly 91 per square kilometre.

Someone from Micronesia is a Micronesian.

The one official language is English. Another 90 entries list English too — among them American Samoa, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda and Australia.

Against Oceania as a whole it is the 12th most populous of 27 entries, and it accounts for 21% of everyone living in Micronesia.

Zoom in from the world to Micronesia and Micronesia sits 3rd of 7 by population and 2nd by area. Its immediate company in that ordering is Kiribati just above and Northern Mariana Islands just below, which is a more honest comparison set than a global league table.

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

• 🇰🇮 Kiribati
• 🇲🇵 Northern Mariana Islands
• 🇬🇺 Guam

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

No currency is recorded for it in this dataset.

Websites there use the .fm domain. The international dialling code is +691. Standard country codes: fm and FSM.

Palikir is the city to remember for this country.

Micronesia 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.