The smallest count in the world is the Vatican City. The Vatican is an independent and sovereign state within the boundaries of Rome in Italy.
Although the Vatican has always been the spiritual and administrative centre of the Roman Catholic Church, it did not become an independent state until 1929.
The city state has a daily news paper, a railway station, and its own bank. It has an area of 0.17 square miles and a population of about 1,000.
There are no frontier formalities for those entering Vatican City where millions yearly visit St Peter’s and the exhibition galleries.
The chief treasures to be seen are the Michelangelo frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, paintings by Raphael, Fra Angelico and Caravaggio, the frescoes of Pinturicchio and the codex Vaticanus of the Greek Bible.