São Tomé and Príncipe 🇸🇹

São Tomé and Príncipe is a country in Middle Africa, one of the 10 entries this site files under that subregion. Its full official name is Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe. The capital is São Tomé, the same name as the country, which is the usual sign of a city-state.

It is home to roughly 235,536 people, placing it 188th of 250 by population — between French Polynesia above it and Samoa below. Within Middle Africa alone it is the 10th largest of 10 and the 10th most populous.

It covers 964 km², which ranks it 190th of the 250 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind Hong Kong and just ahead of the Turks and Caicos Islands. For scale, it is around a quarter larger than Singapore.

Put next to every other entry on this site, São Tomé and Príncipe ranks 190th of 250 by area and 188th 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 São Tomé and Príncipe in the size ordering are Hong Kong at 1,104 km² and Turks and Caicos Islands at 948 km², against São Tomé and Príncipe's 964 km². If you can already picture one of those, you can picture this one.

Density tells a different story from either raw figure. São Tomé and Príncipe averages 244 people per square kilometre of total area, which makes it densely settled by global standards — 63rd 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.

Its reference point sits at 1.0° north and 7.0° east, which puts it in the northern hemisphere, roughly 111 km from the equator, in what geographers would call the equatorial belt.

Countries on the same parallel, far away in longitude, include Malaysia, Kiribati and Singapore.

There is no land frontier at all — every boundary it has is a coastline. That puts it among the 85 entries of 250 here with no land neighbours, so everything and everyone arrives by sea or by air.

São Tomé and Príncipe 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 Equatorial Guinea, roughly 350 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 São Tomé and Príncipe's dialling code and internet domain are worth knowing before you travel.

Population divided by land area gives roughly 244 people per square kilometre, which makes it densely populated. The median across all 250 entries here is about 90 per square kilometre.

The demonym is Sao Tomean, so residents are Sao Tomeans.

Portuguese is the only official language. Another 9 entries list Portuguese too — among them Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde and Equatorial Guinea.

Against Africa as a whole it is the 56th most populous of 59 entries, and it accounts for under 1% of everyone living in Middle Africa.

Within Middle Africa, São Tomé and Príncipe is the least populous of the 10 entries listed here, and 10th by area. Equatorial Guinea 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.

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

• 🇬🇶 Equatorial Guinea
• 🇨🇩 DR Congo

The São Tomé and Príncipe dobra (STN) is used only in São Tomé and Príncipe among the 250 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. Portuguese is listed for 10 entries here, São Tomé and Príncipe 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.

The currency is the São Tomé and Príncipe dobra (Db, STN). No other entry in this dataset uses it, so the currency is specific to São Tomé and Príncipe.

Its internet country code is .st. Calls from overseas start with +239. In ISO terms it is st in two letters and STP in three.

As a sovereign state it is among the 193 UN members listed here. The other 57 entries are territories, dependencies or observers, which is why totals on this site run to 250 rather than the familiar 195.