Vanuatu 🇻🇺

Vanuatu is an independent state in Melanesia, and a member of the United Nations. Treaties and official documents call it Republic of Vanuatu. Its seat of government is Port Vila.

The land area is 12,189 km², which ranks it 163rd of the 249 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind Montenegro and just ahead of the Falkland Islands. For scale, it is a little larger than Qatar.

The population is about 327,777, placing it 181st of 249 by population — between Martinique above it and Mayotte below. Among the 5 entries in Melanesia it ranks 5th by area and 4th by population.

Vanuatu 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 New Caledonia, roughly 630 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 Vanuatu's dialling code and internet domain are worth knowing before you travel.

The coordinates the dataset gives are 16.0° S, 167.0° E, which puts it in the southern hemisphere, roughly 1,781 km from the equator, in what geographers would call tropical latitudes.

Bolivia, Zambia and French Polynesia sit at almost exactly the same latitude on other parts of the globe.

It shares no land border with anyone. That puts it among the 85 entries of 249 here with no land neighbours, so everything and everyone arrives by sea or by air.

Density comes out at around 27 people per square kilometre, which makes it less crowded than the typical entry on this list. For comparison, the median entry on this list sits near 91 per square kilometre.

It recognises 3 languages: Bislama, English and French. Bislama is listed for no other entry in this dataset, which makes it effectively unique to Vanuatu.

Someone from Vanuatu is a Ni-Vanuatu.

Against Oceania as a whole it is the 6th most populous of 27 entries, and it accounts for 2.5% of everyone living in Melanesia.

Put next to every other entry on this site, Vanuatu ranks 163rd of 249 by area and 181st 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 Vanuatu in the size ordering are Montenegro at 13,812 km² and Falkland Islands at 12,173 km², against Vanuatu's 12,189 km². If you can already picture one of those, you can picture this one.

Density tells a different story from either raw figure. Vanuatu averages 27 people per square kilometre of total area, which makes it thinly settled by global standards — 193rd 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.

The Vanuatu vatu (VUV) is used only in Vanuatu among the 249 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. English is listed for 91 entries here, Vanuatu 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.

Money there is the Vanuatu vatu (Vt, VUV). No other entry in this dataset uses it, so the currency is specific to Vanuatu.

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

Websites there use the .vu domain. Calls from overseas start with +678. Standard country codes: vu and VUT.

Vanuatu 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.

Zoom in from the world to Melanesia and Vanuatu sits 4th of 5 by population and 5th by area. Its immediate company in that ordering is Solomon Islands just above and New Caledonia just below, which is a more honest comparison set than a global league table.

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

• 🇸🇧 Solomon Islands
• 🇳🇨 New Caledonia
• 🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea