Vatican City

Discover Vatican City

Vatican City is so small you could walk all the way across it in about 20 minutes. It's the tiniest country on Earth, smaller than many city parks, with fewer than 1,000 people living inside it.

Stranger still, it's a whole country tucked inside another city. Vatican City sits in the middle of Rome, the capital of Italy, surrounded by Roman streets on every side.

This little country is the headquarters of the Catholic Church, one of the largest religions in the world, with more than a billion members. Its ruler is the Pope, who is both the country's leader and the head of the Church.

You might also hear this place called the Holy See. That's the name for the Pope's worldwide authority over the Church, which is a bit different from the country itself.

It might be tiny now, but the Pope once ruled a lot more. For over a thousand years, popes governed a big stretch of central Italy called the Papal States, complete with their own armies and taxes.

Then, in 1870, Italy joined together into one nation and took all that land away. The angry popes refused to leave their palace for nearly 60 years.

Finally, in 1929, Italy and the Pope signed a deal that created the small independent country of Vatican City.

The Church has done great good over the centuries, but it has also made serious mistakes. Long ago, in 1633, Church leaders put the scientist Galileo on trial for saying the Earth moves around the Sun.

He was right, but they forced him to take it back. The Church didn't officially admit he'd been correct until 1992.

For such a small place, the Vatican holds some giant treasures. Step into the Sistine Chapel and look up at the ceiling, which the artist Michelangelo covered with hundreds of painted figures more than 500 years ago.

Next door rises St. Peter's Basilica, one of the biggest churches on the planet. Guarding it all are the Swiss Guard, the Pope's protectors, who wear bright striped uniforms designed centuries ago.

When a Pope dies or steps down, cardinals gather in the Sistine Chapel to choose the next one. They send a signal up a chimney: black smoke means no decision yet, and white smoke means a new Pope has been picked.

That's exactly how Pope Leo XIV was chosen in 2025.