Tuvalu 🇹🇻

Tuvalu is an independent state in Polynesia, and a member of the United Nations. The short and official forms of the name are the same. The capital is Funafuti.

Its territory runs to 26 km², which ranks it 242nd of the 249 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind Macau and just ahead of Nauru. For scale, it is around a quarter larger than Nauru.

Some 9,646 people call it home, placing it 230th of 249 by population — between Saint Barthélemy above it and Saint Pierre and Miquelon below. Within Polynesia alone it is the 9th largest of 10 and the 7th most populous.

Put next to every other entry on this site, Tuvalu ranks 242nd of 249 by area and 230th 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 Tuvalu in the size ordering are Macau at 30 km² and Nauru at 21 km², against Tuvalu's 26 km². If you can already picture one of those, you can picture this one.

Density tells a different story from either raw figure. Tuvalu averages 371 people per square kilometre of total area, which makes it densely settled by global standards — 35th 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 8.0° south, 178.0° east, which puts it in the southern hemisphere, roughly 891 km from the equator, in what geographers would call the equatorial belt.

Follow that same latitude east or west and you reach Brazil, Peru and Tanzania — places that share its distance from the equator but little else.

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, a group made up mostly of islands and island groups.

Tuvalu 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 Wallis and Futuna, roughly 870 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 Tuvalu's dialling code and internet domain are worth knowing before you travel.

Population divided by land area gives roughly 371 people per square kilometre, which makes it densely populated. Half the entries in this dataset fall below roughly 91 per square kilometre.

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

Someone from Tuvalu is a Tuvaluan.

Inside Oceania it places 21st of 27 by population, and it accounts for 1.4% of everyone living in Polynesia.

Zoom in from the world to Polynesia and Tuvalu sits 7th of 10 by population and 9th by area. Its immediate company in that ordering is Wallis and Futuna just above and Tokelau 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.

• 🇼🇫 Wallis and Futuna
• 🇹🇰 Tokelau
• 🇵🇫 French Polynesia

Tuvalu does not have the Australian dollar to itself. It is one of 7 entries on this site that use the currency, whose code is AUD, 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 AUD travels further than you might expect.

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

More than one currency circulates: Australian dollar (AUD) and Tuvaluan dollar (TVD). That is a shared currency: 6 other entries use it, including Australia, Christmas Island, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Kiribati and Nauru.

If a quiz asks for the capital of Tuvalu, the answer is Funafuti.

Websites there use the .tv domain. Calls from overseas start with +688. Standard country codes: tv and TUV.

Tuvalu 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.