St. Peter’s Square, Vatican

Interesting facts about the Vatican

• The Vatican City is a small country surrounded by Rome and is officially known as the Vatican City State. It is the smallest country in the world at only 0.49 square kilometers (0.19 square miles) and has a population of 805 people.
• An amazing fact about the Vatican is the absence of a prison. Instead, there are pre-trial detention centers in the country. According to the Lateran Treaty, those found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment are held in Italian prisons.
• It is customary in the Vatican to drink a lot of wine, and this is due to the fact that the city’s supermarkets sell wine duty-free. This contributes to the greater consumption of wine by the inhabitants of the Vatican, especially during communal dinners and festivities.
• The Vatican is the only country that is fully recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This also includes his extraterritorial holdings in Rome, including St. Peter’s Basilica and St. Mary Major.
• The Vatican has the world’s shortest train station, Citta Vaticano. It has only two 300-meter tracks, but there are no regular passenger trains here.
• Latin has a special meaning in the Vatican, and even the Vatican Bank ATM provides instructions in Latin.
• Vatican citizenship is granted only to those who work and live in the country, and is not hereditary. When the term ends, citizenship is lost.