How big Liechtenstein is, in kilometres and by comparison

160 km², or roughly 62 square miles. That’s the official figure from the Office of Statistics, and it sounds tiny until you set it against the other microstates. I like to explain it differently, because in Liechtenstein square kilometres say less than metres of altitude. Half the country is mountain, and that completely changes how big it feels.

How big is Liechtenstein?

The official area is 160 km². Add up the eleven municipalities in the Office of Statistics table one by one and you get 160.5 km², but the office itself rounds to 160 in its text, and that’s the figure I’d use. From north to south it stretches 24.7 km at its longest, about 15 miles, and from east to west 12.4 km at its widest.

That makes it the fourth-smallest state in Europe and the sixth-smallest in the world. In Europe only Vatican City, at 0.44 km², Monaco, at 2.08, and San Marino, at 61.19, are smaller. Put another way, you could fit about 77 Monacos into Liechtenstein, or two and a half San Marinos. And the other way round, Switzerland, its western neighbour, is around 260 times bigger. Small as it is, it’s fully sovereign, which I explain in is Liechtenstein a country? What to do with so little space and so much mountain is gathered in my Liechtenstein travel guide.

Long, wide and high

What really makes Liechtenstein feel large is height. The lowest point is in the north, in the Ruggeller Riet, a protected fen at 430 m. The highest is the Grauspitz, at the southern end, which the Office of Statistics puts at 2,600 m and the tourist board at 2,599. Between them lie more than 2,000 metres of ascent in a country you can cross from north to south in under 25 km.

The country’s official portal goes further, saying roughly half of Liechtenstein is mountainous and that it’s the only country lying entirely within the Alpine massif. I quote that last claim as the portal’s own words, because the floor of the Rhine valley and the Unterland are fairly flat. The peaks, including the Grauspitz and the Drei Schwestern, are gathered on the mountains of Liechtenstein.

A country that’s nearly half forest

The figure that gets mentioned least is land use. Forest covers 68 km², 42.2% of the country. Farmland accounts for another 52 km², or 32.2%, and unproductive land, mostly rock and water, 23 km². Built-up land comes to just 18 km², a mere 11.3%. For me that neatly undoes the image of a country made of banks and offices, because from above it’s mainly trees, meadows and rock.

Two very unequal halves

Inside, Liechtenstein divides into two historic regions. The Oberland in the south covers 125.5 km², nearly four fifths of the country, and holds Vaduz, the mountains and Malbun. The Unterland in the north measures 35 km² and is mostly low-lying, with the Eschnerberg as its only real hill. I go into more detail on the Oberland of Liechtenstein.

Among the municipalities, the largest is Triesenberg at 29.7 km², which is also the highest, and the smallest is Schellenberg at 3.6 km². The capital, Vaduz, covers 17.3 km² and has the quirk of six exclaves, detached pieces of its territory that include forests and mountain pastures. The complete list is on the municipalities of Liechtenstein.

How long does it take to cross?

That depends on how you measure it. By bus, line 11 links Sargans in the south with Feldkirch in the north via Vaduz, and the Feldkirch to Vaduz leg takes 45 minutes. Climbing from Vaduz to Malbun, on the far side of the ridge, takes half an hour. On foot it’s another matter entirely. The Liechtenstein Trail, which passes through every village, runs to about 75 km split into five stages plus two loops, and it’s the best answer I know to anyone who claims the country can be seen in an afternoon. Its five stages alone add up to about 21 hours of walking by the tourist board’s own timings.

No sea, and no neighbours with one

Liechtenstein has no coastline, and neither do its two neighbours. Switzerland and Austria are both landlocked, so Liechtenstein is one of the world’s two doubly landlocked states, along with Uzbekistan. The border runs to 77.9 km in total, 41.3 km with Switzerland, much of it along the Rhine, and 36.6 km with Austria, according to the Office of Statistics. Where each stretch lies is shown on the map of Liechtenstein.