Falkland Islands 🇫🇰

The Falkland Islands is one of the territories of South America that appears on world lists without being a UN member state. Its seat of government is Stanley.

Its recorded population is just 3,700, among the smallest anywhere. Measured only against its own subregion, it is 14th of 14 in size and 14th in population.

It covers 12,173 km², which ranks it 165th of the 250 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind Vanuatu and just ahead of Qatar. That makes it a little larger than Qatar.

Falkland Islands does not hold a United Nations seat of its own. It is administered as a dependency or overseas territory rather than as a sovereign state, which is why it sits outside the 193 member states while still appearing among the 250 entries on this site.

Not holding a UN seat is not the same as having no self-government, and the administrative details make that clear. Falkland Islands has 5 of the five markers of separate administration tracked on this page — its own currency, its own dialling code, its own internet domain, its own iso codes and a designated capital. In day-to-day terms it is run substantially as its own jurisdiction.

• Its own currencyFKP
• Its own dialling code+500
• Its own internet domain.fk
• Its own ISO codesfk / FLK
• A designated capitalStanley

Its reference point sits at 51.8° south and 59.0° west, which puts it in the southern hemisphere, roughly 5,761 km from the equator, in what geographers would call temperate latitudes.

Countries on the same parallel, far away in longitude, include Heard Island and McDonald Islands.

There is no land frontier at all — every boundary it has is a coastline. That puts it among the 85 entries of 250 here with no land neighbours, so everything and everyone arrives by sea or by air.

Falkland Islands has no land border with any country, which changes what "nearby" means. Measured centre to centre in a straight line, the closest other entry on this site is South Georgia, roughly 1,490 km away. These are approximate distances between representative points, not the shortest crossing between two shorelines, so treat them as a sense of scale rather than a sailing chart.

Being surrounded by water rather than by neighbours pushes a country's relationships outward. South Georgia sits in a different world region from Falkland Islands yet ranks among its closest geographic company — the kind of pairing that only shows up once you stop thinking in continents.

No land border also means no land crossing: everything and everyone arrives by sea or by air. That single fact drives a lot of what follows on this page, from how goods reach the shops to why Falkland Islands's dialling code and internet domain are worth knowing before you travel.

Population divided by land area gives roughly 0.30 people per square kilometre, which makes it one of the emptiest inhabited places on the list. The median across all 250 entries here is about 90 per square kilometre.

Officially it is monolingual: English. Another 90 entries list English too — among them American Samoa, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda and Australia.

Someone from the Falkland Islands is a Falkland Islander.

Against the Americas as a whole it is the 55th most populous of 56 entries, and it accounts for under 1% of everyone living in South America.

The Falkland Islands pound (FKP) is used only in Falkland Islands among the 250 entries on this site. Its own currency is one of the clearest markers of an economy that sets its own monetary policy rather than importing somebody else's.

Language reaches wider still. English is listed for 91 entries here, Falkland Islands among them, so a visitor who speaks it can be understood across a large part of the map. Shared language tends to outlive the empires, trade routes and migrations that spread it, which is why the linguistic map and the political one rarely line up.

Within South America, Falkland Islands is the least populous of the 14 entries listed here, and 14th by area. French Guiana is the next step up. Being the smallest of a group is not the same as being small in absolute terms — the subregional context is what gives the figure meaning.

Brazil is the largest of the group by population, and every entry in South America has its own page here if you want to work through the whole neighbourhood rather than one country at a time.

• 🇬🇫 French Guiana
• 🇧🇷 Brazil

The currency is the Falkland Islands pound (£, FKP). No other entry in this dataset uses it, so the currency is specific to the Falkland Islands.

Stanley is the seat of government and the answer most quizzes are looking for.

Its internet country code is .fk. Calls from overseas start with +500. Standard country codes: fk and FLK.

On the UN list it does not appear as a member. The dataset does not record which state administers it, so this page does not guess. Of the 250 entries here, 57 are territories or observers rather than member states.