Smallest countries in the world.

The world’s biggest countries get the most attention, to be sure, whether it’s the presidential election in the United States, trade with China, politics in Russia, or the fate of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil.
But the countries with the smallest populations have big stories of their own.
Some are struggling with too many people, like Mauritania and its neighbors in West Africa, where resources and services are falling short and hunger and disease are spreading. Places like Papua New Guinea and the Comoros have too many children who are not yet old enough to work and contribute economically.
Many countries have what’s called a negative growth rate, meaning at the current pace, the number of people will dwindle as deaths outnumber births. That’s the case in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in the Balkans.
More than a few are having crises traced to political traumas, especially former Soviet republics and satellites like Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, and Bulgaria, which have struggled since the dissolution of the superpower in the early 1990s.
Some are small yet inundated with migrants and asylum seekers traveling in search of better lives. That’s true of Libya, Cyprus, and tiny Djibouti at the Suez Canal. Wealthy nations like Singapore, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, and Bahrain are bursting with guest laborers brought in from other countries to cook, clean, and build.
Others are seeing waves of departures, as residents leave in droves, fleeing gang violence in El Salvador, harsh conscription in Eritrea, war in Lebanon, rising seas in Kiribati, and joblessness in Tonga.
Many small countries survive only because those who leave send money back home as remittances, such as Kyrgyzstan, the Gambia, Kosovo, Guyana, and Belize.
In some places, the birth rate is so high that governments like those in the Republic of the Congo and Liberia are trying to spread the word about family planning and contraception. Meanwhile, Albania’s population decline has been so steep that the government has offered money to entice parents to have children.
In honor of World Population Day on July 11 and for insight into these small, lesser-known populations, Stacker referenced data from the Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook 2020. The list features the 95 least-populous nations out of the 195 nations recognized by either the United Nations or the United States.