There is no single definition of a small country because size is a relative concept. For instance, Simon Kuznets in “Economic Growth of Small Nations”¹ used an upper limit of 10 million peopleby this measure, 134 economies are “small” today. Other indicators such as territory size or GDP are sometimes used. But population is highly correlated with territory size as well as with GDP; therefore, use of population as an indicator of size helps highlight small states’ limited resources.²

By the same token, there is no special significance in the selection of a particular population threshold to define small states. Indeed, the Commonwealth, in its work on small states, uses a threshold of 1.5 million people,³ but it also includes larger member countries (Jamaica, Lesotho, Namibia and Papua New Guinea) because they share many of the same characteristics of smallness. For the work of the Task Force, the same threshold was chosen as a convenient yardstick for classifying all small states, and only sovereign states were considered. But we also concluded that no definition, whether it be population, geographical size or GDP, is likely to be fully satisfactory. In practice there is a continuum, with states larger than whatever threshold is chosen sharing some or all of the characteristics of smaller countries. This report and its conclusions should therefore be taken as applying, at least in some degree, to all such countries and territories.

Using the standard of a population below 1.5 million people, 45 developing countries⁴are small (see Alphabetical list of small states by population, population rank & GNP per capita), accounting for nearly one third of the total number of developing countries. They are home to 20 million people, less than 0.4 percent of the total population of developing countries. They range in size from “micro-states” like Cook Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Tuvalu (with fewer than 50,000 people each) to Botswana, Gabon, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritius, and Trinidad and Tobago (with more than 1 million people each). The per capita GNP in these countries also ranges widely, from less than $400 in several African countries (Comoros, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, and Sao Tome and Principe) to just $700-1,300 in such countries as Cape Verde, Guyana, Kiribati, Maldives, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu; to more than $9,000 (The Bahamas, Brunei, Cyprus, Malta, and Qatar). There are small states in every geographic region, but most countries fall into three main groups: twelve states are in the Caribbean region, fourteen in East Asia and Pacific, and twelve in Africa. Of the remaining seven countries, two are in South Asia, two in the Middle East, and three in Europe.

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1. “Economic Growth of Small Nations” in E.A.G. Robinson, ed. 1960. Economic Consequences of the Size of Nations.
2. Richard L. Bernal, 1998, “The Integration of Small Economies in the Free Trade Area of the Americas”, CSIS Policy Papers on the Americas, Volume IX.
3. This definition of size was agreed by the Commonwealth Advisory Group in producing its report, A Future for Small States: Overcoming Vulnerability, Commonwealth Advisory Group, 1997.
4. The coverage here is of all countries eligible for official aid, including one transition economy (Estonia) and developing countries, as listed in the List of Aid Recipients Used for 1997 and 1998 Flows issued by the OECD Development Assistance Committee. Further references to “small states” in this report are to this group of countries.

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Countries listed are those with a population of 1.5 million or less. Source: World Bank database. Classification according to 2000 GNP per capita (* indicates 1998 data and non-World Bank member), calculated using the World Bank Atlas method:
a/ High income economy (per capita GNP $9,631 or more) b/ Upper middle income economy (per capita GNP $3,031-$9,630) c/ Lower middle income economy (per capita GNP $761-$3,030) d/ Low income economy (per capita GNP $760 or less).

Though their populations are above 1.5 million, Botswana, Jamaica, Lesotho, and Namibia are World Bank members invited to the Small States Forum.