Country · Oceania
Vanuatu
Republic of Vanuatu
Vanuatu is a country in Melanesia. Its capital city is Port Vila. About 293 thousand people live there, in an area of 12 189 square kilometres.
Picture credit: Phillip Capper (CC BY 2.0) · Graham Crumb (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Graham Crumb (CC BY-SA 3.0) · gérard (CC BY-SA 2.0) · gérard (CC BY-SA 2.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is Vanuatu?
Vanuatu lies in Melanesia, on the continent of Oceania.
It sits in the southern half of the world, roughly 1 781 km from the equator.
Its coastline is about 2 528 km long.
It has no land neighbours — every border it has is with the sea.
How big is Vanuatu?
Vanuatu covers 12 189 square kilometres.
That is about 4.7 times the size of Luxembourg.
Among the world's countries that makes it the 157th largest.
Spread out evenly, that is roughly 24 people per square kilometre.
Who lives in Vanuatu?
About 293 thousand people live in Vanuatu.
That is the 172nd biggest population in the world.
People here speak Bislama, English and French.
They pay with the Vanuatu vatu (Vt).
On average, people born here can expect to live about 61 years.
The land of Vanuatu
Its coast runs for about 2 528 km. Walking it end to end, at twenty kilometres a day, would take roughly 126 days.
It lies inside the tropics, which is the single biggest reason its weather is the way it is.
What makes Vanuatu different?
A dish the country is known for: Lap lap.
Websites from here often end in .vu.
Vanuatu and the rest of the world
Out of every thousand people alive on Earth, about 0 live in Vanuatu.
It takes up about 0.01 % of all the land that countries stand on.
Within Oceania it is the 6th largest of 14 countries, and the 6th most populated.
That is emptier than the world average of roughly 60 people per square kilometre.
Questions children ask
What is the capital of Vanuatu?
The capital of Vanuatu is Port Vila. It is the city where the country's government works from.
How many people live in Vanuatu?
About 293 thousand people live in Vanuatu, which makes it the 172nd most populated country in the world. (Source: World Bank, 2018.)
How big is Vanuatu?
Vanuatu covers 12 189 square kilometres, making it the 157th largest country in the world. That is about 4.7 times the size of Luxembourg.
Which continent is Vanuatu in?
Vanuatu is in Oceania, in the part called Melanesia.
Where these numbers come from
Borders and outlines: Natural Earth. Names, capitals, areas, languages and currencies: ISO 3166 data (world-countries). Population: World Bank, 2018. Every derived figure on this page (ranks, density, distance from the equator) is calculated from those values.
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