Gambia 🇬🇲

Filed under Africa and more precisely Western Africa, the Gambia is a sovereign state. In formal use it is Republic of the Gambia. Banjul is the capital.

Around 2.8 million people live there, placing it 142nd of 250 by population — between Jamaica above it and Gabon below. Within Western Africa alone it is the 15th largest of 17 and the 14th most populous.

By land area it covers 10,689 km², which ranks it 169th of the 250 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind Kosovo and just ahead of Lebanon. For scale, it is almost exactly the same size as Jamaica.

The coordinates the dataset gives are 13.5° N, 16.6° W, which puts it in the northern hemisphere, roughly 1,499 km from the equator, in what geographers would call tropical latitudes.

Sudan, Chad and Yemen sit at almost exactly the same latitude on other parts of the globe.

1 country shares a land border with it: Senegal.

Unlike its landlocked neighbours it reaches the sea directly, while also sharing land frontiers.

Density comes out at around 258 people per square kilometre, which makes it densely populated. For comparison, the median entry on this list sits near 90 per square kilometre.

English is the only official language. English is one of the widely shared official languages here, listed by 90 other entries including American Samoa, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda and Australia.

People from the Gambia are called Gambians.

Inside Africa it places 42nd of 59 by population, and it accounts for under 1% of everyone living in Western Africa.

Put next to every other entry on this site, Gambia ranks 169th of 250 by area and 142nd by population. That works out at less than a thousandth of a percent of the combined land area of all 250 entries and 0.034% of their combined population. Those denominators matter: this list includes territories and dependencies as well as UN member states, so a rank here is not the same as a rank among sovereign countries.

For a sense of scale, the entries immediately either side of Gambia in the size ordering are Kosovo at 10,908 km² and Lebanon at 10,452 km², against Gambia's 10,689 km². If you can already picture one of those, you can picture this one.

Density tells a different story from either raw figure. Gambia averages 258 people per square kilometre of total area, which makes it densely settled by global standards — 59th of the 248 entries that have both a population and a measured area. Total area includes inland water, so the true figure for habitable land is higher than this.

Zoom in from the world to Western Africa and Gambia sits 14th of 17 by population and 15th by area. Its immediate company in that ordering is Mauritania just above and Guinea-Bissau just below, which is a more honest comparison set than a global league table.

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

• 🇲🇷 Mauritania
• 🇬🇼 Guinea-Bissau
• 🇳🇬 Nigeria

The dalasi (GMD) is used only in Gambia 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, Gambia 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.

Money there is the dalasi (D, GMD). It shares that currency with.

Websites there use the .gm domain. Calls from overseas start with +220. Its ISO codes are gm and GMB, which is what most databases and flag files use.

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

As a sovereign state it is among the 193 UN members listed here. The other 57 entries are territories, dependencies or observers, which is why totals on this site run to 250 rather than the familiar 195.