Vatican City

Vatican City is on a small hill.

A river called the Tiber flows nearby. Half of the country is gardens. Gardeners grow flowers, hedges and trees there.

Vatican City sits on a small hill near the Tiber River. Long ago this side of the river was swampy land. Today about half of the country, roughly 22 hectares, is the Vatican Gardens, with lawns, woods, fountains and neat flower beds.

The gardens began in 1279, when Pope Nicholas III planted an orchard, a lawn and a garden inside new walls. Later gardeners added rare plants from all over the world. The garden staff use Mediterranean evergreens such as bay laurel and myrtle for decorations, and in April 2026 a tulip tree was planted there.

The Vatican lies close to the right bank of the Tiber on a small hill that covers part of the ancient Montes Vaticani; the Governorate's history notes that in ancient times the name Vatican referred to a swampy area on that bank of the river. About half of the roughly 44 hectares, some 22 hectares, is taken up by the Vatican Gardens.

The gardens date from 1279, when Nicholas III moved the papal residence to the Vatican and had an orchard (pomerium), a lawn (pratellum) and a garden (viridarium) planted. In the 16th century the botanist Michele Mercati and the scholar Ulisse Aldrovandi added exotic and rare plants; in the early 17th century the restored Trajan's aqueduct fed new fountains. After the 1929 treaty the architect Giuseppe Momo and the botanist Giovanni Nicolini redesigned the gardens over four years, creating Italian-style gardens with geometric flower beds, a Shell Garden and a Rose Garden at the highest point of the hill. The sky above changed too: by the early 1930s electric light had made Rome's sky so bright that the Vatican Observatory was moved to Castel Gandolfo.

The Vatican Gardens have an old stone pond.

Long ago, fish swam in it. Today water turtles live there. Long ago, the gardens also had farm animals.

Vatican City's gardens are home to animals too. Beside the Casina of Pius IV, a small villa built in the 1500s, there is an old pond. It was once full of fish, and today it is home to water turtles.

Long ago the gardens had many more animals. The first garden, planted in the 1200s, kept many kinds of animals, including some from faraway places. By the 1600s, fields beyond the old walls were used for grazing animals, like a busy farm.

The Vatican Museums' history of the gardens shows how animals were part of them for centuries. The garden planted under Nicholas III in the late 13th century was home to numerous animal species, including exotic ones, which together with the crops supplied food for the papal table. By the early 17th century, the green area extended beyond the Leonine Walls, where cultivated fields and grazing land formed a farm that produced goods for sale.

Today the clearest record of animal life is at the Casina of Pius IV, a villa designed by Pirro Ligorio and finished in the 1560s: the basin of its fishpond, once stocked with fish, now houses water turtles, which also appear in 19th-century mosaics on either side. The Governorate lists the care of green spaces and the protection of biodiversity among the aims of its ecological transition program.

Fewer than 1,000 people live in Vatican City.

Some of them are guards from Switzerland. They have guarded the Pope for more than 500 years. Vatican City has its own stamps, coins and radio station.

Vatican City has very few people. At the end of 2024 the state counted 882 residents, citizens and non-citizens. In 2026 its website listed 673 citizens, and 458 of them lived inside the walls, including 120 members of the Swiss Guard. Many citizens live in other countries because of their work, for example as diplomats.

The Swiss Guard has protected the Pope since 1506. Vatican City has its own post office, stamps, coins (in euros), a daily newspaper started in 1861 and Vatican Radio, which began in 1931. Almost all its food, water and electricity come from outside.

The Governorate's statistics count 882 residents of the state, citizens and non-citizens, on 31 December 2024. In 2026 its website gave 673 citizens, of whom 458 lived inside the walls, including 120 members of the Pontifical Swiss Guard; some 30 percent of citizens live abroad, mostly because of their work, such as diplomatic posts. Britannica notes that most inhabitants are priests or nuns, with several hundred laypeople in secretarial, domestic, trade and service jobs.

Security is provided by the Swiss Guard, founded in 1506, whose uniforms are traditionally said to have been designed by Michelangelo, and by the Gendarmerie Corps, the state's police. The state issues its own postage stamps and mints its own euro coins, publishes the daily L'Osservatore Romano (founded 1861) and runs Vatican Radio (since 1931), which broadcasts in many languages. Almost all supplies, including food, water, electricity and gas, are imported. As the Holy See, it is funded by voluntary contributions from more than a billion Catholics worldwide, as well as investments and the sale of stamps, coins and publications.