Fast Facts:
- Named for: Vagitanus or the vagiti, the cry of a baby (Etruscan, maybe)
- Capital: The Pope’s house at One Pope Lane
- Long/Lat: 41.5 N/12.2 E, 6200 miles or 12 hours east of Castro Valley
- Population: 882 and not a single cardinal more or less. 1% of CV.
- Size: 0.19 sq mi, 1% of CV.
- Avg temp in April: 70 F/20 C, very pleasant
- Median household income: $20,000? but stats not published. Free room and board.
- Ethnicity: Not published, but likely more diverse than expected. Only one religion, though.
- Main industries: Proselytizing. Plus the merch!
Vatican City was originally a swamp. It’s located on the less breezy side of the Tiber, near Rome’s original arch enemy, the Etruscans. It was named either for a baby’s cry or for auspices drawn by the way birds fly or the way a liver appeared, which was (ironically) a significant part of Roman religious practices. Still, it was a marsh, dismal and ominous. Like the Bayou–popes were born on the bayou (with apologies to CCR).
Unlike some of these other countries, you probably have heard of it because it’s a Jeopardy question. What’s the smallest country in the world? Vatican City is also a true enclave, a country entirely contained within another country, along with San Marino and Lesotho and almost Eswatini (remember letter E?) It should not seem so strange for Vatican City to be its own country, considering that Rome itself used to be a “country,” not to mention an “empire” that would span more than 40 countries today if it still existed.
