50 Fun Facts About Vatican City

On the bank of which river does Vatican City sit, as an enclave inside the Italian capital?

Its border with Italy across St Peter's Square is just a white line on the paving, and there are no passport controls.

Which 1929 agreement between the Holy See and Italy created the modern state of Vatican City?

Mussolini signed for the king and Cardinal Gasparri for the pope on 11 February; it ended the 'Roman Question' that had festered since 1870.

What is the approximate area of Vatican City?

That is roughly a fifth of a square mile, and about half of it is taken up by the Vatican Gardens.

Roughly how many people lived in Vatican City in 2024?

It is the only country with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants; another 372 citizens, mostly diplomats and cardinals, live elsewhere.

What kind of state is Vatican City politically?

The pope holds legislative, executive and judicial power, making him the continent's only absolute monarch.

How does one normally acquire Vatican citizenship?

The principle is called jus officii, unlike the jus soli or jus sanguinis used almost everywhere else, so citizenship usually lapses when the job ends.

Which currency has Vatican City used since 1999?

It mints its own limited run of coins under an EU agreement but issues no banknotes; more coins are allowed in a year with a new pope.

What is unusual about the ATMs of the Vatican Bank, the Institute for Works of Religion?

The bank conducts worldwide financial activities and was at the centre of money-laundering charges that prompted a new economic secretariat in 2014.

Which pope founded the Swiss Guard on 22 January 1506?

The same pope commissioned Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling and laid the foundation stone of the new St Peter's that year.

What is the minimum height for a recruit to the Swiss Guard?

Recruits must also be Catholic, unmarried, Swiss, aged 19 to 30 and have completed Swiss army basic training.

During the Sack of Rome on 6 May 1527, how many of the 189 Swiss Guards died protecting Pope Clement VII?

The survivors escorted the pope to safety along the Passetto di Borgo; new recruits are still sworn in every 6 May.

What traditional pole weapon do Swiss Guards still carry alongside modern firearms?

Their dress uniform of red, dark blue and yellow stripes was designed in the early 20th century, not by Michelangelo as legend claims.

In which language are commands given in the pope's Guard?

Guards swear their oath in their own language - German, French, Italian or Romansh - while the state's laws are written in Italian.

Which pope disbanded the Palatine Guard and the Noble Guard in 1970, leaving only the Swiss Guard?

The Gendarmerie Corps became a civilian police force at the same time; it now has about 130 personnel.

What happens to people convicted of crimes in the city-state, which has no prison of its own?

Most Vatican crime is pickpocketing of tourists in St Peter's Square, which is normally patrolled by Italian police anyway.

What is the Vatican's only aviation facility?

Air travellers use Rome's Fiumicino and Ciampino airports; the state is one of the few countries with no airport at all.

What is the Vatican's railway station mainly used for?

An 852-metre spur links it to Roma San Pietro; John XXIII was the first pope to ride it and John Paul II hardly ever did.

What is Vatican City's internet top-level domain?

Its amateur radio prefix is HV, and its media outlets were merged under a single Dicastery for Communication in 2015.

Which radio pioneer organised Vatican Radio?

Its main transmitters stand on Italian soil and exceed Italian emission limits, which has landed the station in court.

On what date in 1929 did the new state begin issuing its own postage stamps?

The postal service, founded that February, is sometimes called the best in the world and faster than Rome's.

In which ranking is Vatican City an outlier due to its tiny, mostly male, clerical population?

It also posts a very high per-capita crime rate, thanks to petty theft from millions of tourists.

Which emperor built the circus in his mother's gardens where St Peter was reputedly crucified?

He also brought the obelisk that still stands in St Peter's Square from Heliopolis in Egypt; Nero finished the circus.

Which pope moved the Egyptian obelisk to its present spot in the centre of St Peter's Square in 1586?

The engineer Domenico Fontana devised the method; the obelisk is the last visible remnant of Nero's circus.

Where did the popes live for about a thousand years before settling in the Vatican?

They moved to the Quirinal in 1583, and it was seized by the King of Italy in 1871.

Which pope, the last ruler of the Papal States, called himself a 'prisoner in the Vatican' after 1870?

The popes refused to leave the Vatican compound until the dispute with Italy was settled in 1929.

Which pope was signatory, through Cardinal Gasparri, to the treaty that created Vatican City?

The treaty was ratified on 7 June 1929 and also reaffirmed Catholicism's special status in Italy, modified by a later concordat.

What was Vatican City's policy during the Second World War?

Both sides respected its status, and the pope even protested RAF pamphlet drops that landed inside its walls.

In which US city was Pope Leo XIV, elected in May 2025, born?

He was born Robert Francis Prevost; the state's day-to-day head of government is the president of the Pontifical Commission.

What status does the Holy See hold at the United Nations?

It has every right of a member except a vote in the General Assembly; Palestine is the only other entity in a similar position.

When was construction of the present St Peter's Basilica completed?

It had begun on 18 April 1506, replacing the fourth-century basilica built by Constantine.

Which Roman church, not St Peter's, is the cathedral of the Diocese of Rome?

St Peter's is neither the mother church of Catholicism nor Rome's cathedral, yet it is regarded as one of the holiest Catholic shrines.

What lies directly beneath the basilica's high altar, according to Catholic tradition?

The surrounding Roman necropolis was systematically excavated between 1939 and 1941.

Which sculptor designed St Peter's Square and its colonnades between 1667 and 1676?

The Tuscan colonnades, four columns deep, were meant to embrace visitors in 'the maternal arms of Mother Church'.

Which Michelangelo sculpture stands in a chapel of St Peter's Basilica?

The basilica's central feature is a baldachin over the papal altar; the building's designers included Bramante, Michelangelo and Maderno.

After which pope, who had it built between 1473 and 1481, is the Sistine Chapel named?

He celebrated its first mass on 15 August 1483; it had originally been called the Cappella Magna.

In which years did Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling?

He came back after the Sack of Rome to paint The Last Judgment on the altar wall between 1535 and 1541.

What signals that a papal conclave in the Sistine Chapel has elected a new pope?

Black smoke means no candidate has yet reached the required two-thirds of the votes.

Which of these Renaissance painters worked on the Sistine Chapel's wall frescoes in the early 1480s?

Perugino, Pinturicchio, Ghirlandaio and Rosselli were part of the same team, decades before Michelangelo touched the ceiling.

The Vatican Museums trace their origin to which sculpture, unearthed in a Roman vineyard in 1506?

The pope sent Michelangelo and Giuliano da Sangallo to inspect it and bought it on the spot.

How many people visited the Vatican Museums in 2024, second only to the Louvre?

The collection holds roughly 70,000 works, of which about 20,000 are on display.

Where was the Vatican Observatory moved in the 1930s to escape Rome's light pollution?

Since the 1990s it has also run the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope in Arizona with the University of Arizona.

How many teams compete in the Vatican City football championship?

They include the Swiss Guard's FC Guardia and sides from the police and museum guards; the national team belongs to neither UEFA nor FIFA.

In which year was the entire territory of Vatican City added to UNESCO's World Heritage List?

It is the only World Heritage Site that consists of a whole country.

What did the name 'Vatican' originally refer to in Roman times?

Martial mocked its terrible wine, and Tacitus blamed its unhealthy air for deaths among troops camped there in AD 69.

Which pope built the Leonine Wall around the Vatican after Muslim raiders sacked Old St Peter's in 846?

The current fortification walls were built later under Paul III, Pius IV and Urban VIII and helped fix the state's borders in 1929.

The obelisk in St Peter's Square was brought from which Egyptian city by the emperor Caligula?

It is the last visible remnant of the Circus of Nero, where tradition says Saint Peter was crucified upside-down.

Roughly what share of Vatican City's territory is taken up by the Vatican Gardens?

The gardens cover some 23 hectares and rise to 60 metres above sea level, bounded by stone walls on three sides.

Which pope moved his residence back to the Vatican from the Lateran Palace in 1279 and walled in the gardens?

He planted an orchard, a lawn and a garden there, the origins of today's Vatican Gardens.

In 2007 the Vatican accepted a symbolic plan to become the first carbon-neutral state by planting a forest where?

The 'Vatican Climate Forest' was meant to offset the state's emissions, but nothing ever came of the project.

Swiss Guard recruits must be Catholic, unmarried Swiss men within which age range?

They must also have completed Swiss Army basic training and stand at least 174 cm tall.