Vaduz - the little city
With only about 37,000 people in roughly 62 square miles, Liechtenstein is one of the smallest countries in the world. (The sixth-smallest, to be exact.) Here are just a few fascinating facts about the alpine microstate:
- Liechtenstein’s capital city, Vaduz, has a population of around 5,425, but its largest city is the mostly unheard-of town of Schaan, barely eking out a victory with about 583 more people than Vaduz.
- Liechtenstein has one of the world’s lowest crime rates, with its last murder occurring in approximately 1997 and its prison holding very few inmates. Citizens who are given prison sentences longer than two years are transferred over to Austria.
- Switzerland unintentionally invaded Liechtenstein in March 2007, when about 170 Swiss infantry soldiers wandered across the unmarked border for more than a mile into Liechtenstein before realizing their mistake.
- It's the world's leading manufacturer of false teeth accounting for 20 percent of the total sales worldwide.
- Once a year, all the residents are invited to party in a castle. On Liechtenstein’s national holiday, His Serene Highness Prince Hans-Adam II, the head of state, and his son, His Serene Highness Hereditary Prince Alois, invite the residents of their tiny principality to have a beer in the garden of Vaduz Castle, the princely ancestral residence.
- In 2011, you could rent the whole country of Liechtenstein for $70,000 a night.
- Liechtenstein’s national anthem is sung to the same melody as “God Save the Queen,” which meant that the same tune was played twice in a row when Northern Ireland and Liechtenstein competed for a UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) Euro 2004 qualifier game.
- The country is not only landlocked but double - landlocked.
Both of the countries that border Liechtenstein—Austria to the north and east and Switzerland to the south and west—are themselves landlocked.
Vaduz - the little city
With only about 37,000 people in roughly 62 square miles, Liechtenstein is one of the smallest countries in the world. (The sixth-smallest, to be exact.) Here are just a few fascinating facts about the alpine microstate:
- Liechtenstein’s capital city, Vaduz, has a population of around 5,425, but its largest city is the mostly unheard-of town of Schaan, barely eking out a victory with about 583 more people than Vaduz.
- Liechtenstein has one of the world’s lowest crime rates, with its last murder occurring in approximately 1997 and its prison holding very few inmates. Citizens who are given prison sentences longer than two years are transferred over to Austria.
- Switzerland unintentionally invaded Liechtenstein in March 2007, when about 170 Swiss infantry soldiers wandered across the unmarked border for more than a mile into Liechtenstein before realizing their mistake.
- It's the world's leading manufacturer of false teeth accounting for 20 percent of the total sales worldwide.
- Once a year, all the residents are invited to party in a castle. On Liechtenstein’s national holiday, His Serene Highness Prince Hans-Adam II, the head of state, and his son, His Serene Highness Hereditary Prince Alois, invite the residents of their tiny principality to have a beer in the garden of Vaduz Castle, the princely ancestral residence.
- In 2011, you could rent the whole country of Liechtenstein for $70,000 a night.
- Liechtenstein’s national anthem is sung to the same melody as “God Save the Queen,” which meant that the same tune was played twice in a row when Northern Ireland and Liechtenstein competed for a UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) Euro 2004 qualifier game.
- The country is not only landlocked but double - landlocked.
Both of the countries that border Liechtenstein—Austria to the north and east and Switzerland to the south and west—are themselves landlocked.