Tokelau 🇹🇰

Tokelau sits in Polynesia and is listed as a dependency rather than an independent state. Unlike most entries, its formal name adds nothing to the short one. Fakaofo is the capital.

By land area it covers 12 km², which ranks it 246th of the 249 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and just ahead of Gibraltar. That makes it roughly half the size of Nauru.

Its recorded population is just 1,900, among the smallest anywhere. Measured only against its own subregion, it is 10th of 10 in size and 8th in population.

Tokelau 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. Tokelau 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 currencyNZD
• Its own dialling code+690
• Its own internet domain.tk
• Its own ISO codestk / TKL
• A designated capitalFakaofo

Its reference point sits at 9.0° south and 172.0° west, which puts it in the southern hemisphere, roughly 1,002 km from the equator, in what geographers would call the equatorial belt.

Countries on the same parallel, far away in longitude, include Brazil, Peru and the Solomon Islands.

There is no land frontier at all — every boundary it has is a coastline. That puts it among the 85 entries of 249 here with no land neighbours, so everything and everyone arrives by sea or by air.

Tokelau 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 Samoa, roughly 510 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 Tokelau's dialling code and internet domain are worth knowing before you travel.

Spread across 12 km², that works out at about 158 people per square kilometre, which makes it more crowded than the typical entry on this list. The median across all 249 entries here is about 91 per square kilometre.

People from Tokelau are called Tokelauans.

3 languages carry official status: English, Samoan and Tokelauan. Tokelauan is listed for no other entry in this dataset, which makes it effectively unique to Tokelau. English, the first listed, is shared with 90 other entries worldwide.

Inside Oceania it places 23rd of 27 by population, and it accounts for under 1% of everyone living in Polynesia.

Tokelau does not have the New Zealand dollar to itself. It is one of 5 entries on this site that use the currency, whose code is NZD, 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 NZD travels further than you might expect.

Language reaches wider still. English is listed for 91 entries here, Tokelau 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 Polynesia and Tokelau sits 8th of 10 by population and 10th by area. Its immediate company in that ordering is Tuvalu just above and Niue just below, which is a more honest comparison set than a global league table.

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

• 🇹🇻 Tuvalu
• 🇳🇺 Niue
• 🇵🇫 French Polynesia

It uses the New Zealand dollar ($, NZD). It shares that currency with the Cook Islands, New Zealand, Niue and the Pitcairn Islands.

The top-level domain is .tk. Calls from overseas start with +690. Its ISO codes are tk and TKL, which is what most databases and flag files use.

If a quiz asks for the capital of Tokelau, the answer is Fakaofo.

On the UN list it does not appear as a member. It uses New Zealand's currency and issues none of its own, which is the usual mark of a dependency. Of the 249 entries here, 57 are territories or observers rather than member states.