Which is the smallest country in Asia by land area?

The Maldives is the smallest country in Asia by land area.

The Maldives is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, southwest of India and Sri Lanka. Its approximately 1,190 coral islands are grouped into 26 natural atolls, but together they contain only about 298 square kilometers of dry land. That makes the Maldives the smallest Asian country by area.

The country’s tiny land area can be misleading on maps because its islands are spread across roughly 90,000 square kilometers of ocean. Nearly all of the Maldives is water, and individual islands are generally small, low-lying sand and coral formations. Malé, the capital, is one of the world’s most densely populated urban islands.

The Maldives is also the world’s lowest-lying country. Its average natural ground level is around 1.5 meters above sea level, while its highest natural point is only about 2.4 meters. Bahrain, Singapore, and Brunei are all small Asian countries, but each has substantially more land area than the Maldives.