There’s a fascinating post up on the Strange Maps blog this morning about Vatican City and the Holy See. Vatican City, it seems, is not exactly what you think it is.

So Vatican City is not what you think it is. It is not the diplomatic interface between the Catholic Church and the rest of the world. That role is played by the Holy See, which exchanges ambassadors with most of the world’s countries (rather than Vatican City). Rather, Vatican City is the toehold of sovereign territory that gives the papacy its peace of mind: the territorial buffer shielding the Church’s sovereignty rather than the essence of that sovereignty.

It then follows up with a bunch of interesting maps detailing the geographic boundaries of the tiny Vatican City (only 1/6 of a square mile in area!).

An interesting read.

[Strange Maps: Bigger Than You Think: the Vatican and its Annexes]