A lot of people say to us here at EstAdventures, “Estonia is really small, isn’t it? We usually just nod and agree, but occasionally we will get a little philosophical, and ask “what do you mean by small?” (This usually happens on our View with a Brew tour!). We thought we might as well put our thoughts down here on the blog.
By European standards, Estonia isn’t that small, covering 45,227km². When we consulted our good friend Mr. Wikipedia, we discovered that Estonia is the 30th biggest country out of 48 in Europe, in terms of land mass. That puts it at the smaller end of the table, but it is larger than countries such as Denmark, The Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium. So it really isn’t right to call Estonia tiny, at least in terms of how big it is.
When it comes to population, Estonia is in a similar place on the table, but there are fewer “well known” countries behind it. In terms of population, Estonia is 35th out of 47. (Yes these tables have a slightly different list of countries. Blame Mr. Wikipedia, not us!) Estonia has just 1.34 million people at last count, making it bigger than Montenegro and smaller than Slovenia.
We have plenty of Americans travel with us, and we often put it to them in American terms. Estonia is bigger than Maryland (32,000km²) and smaller than West Virginia (62,000km².) If Estonia was a U.S state it would be the 42nd biggest state. Estonia would be the 30th most populated state in the union, between Connecticut and Iowa.
If you’re from Australia, just think that Estonia is about two-thirds the size of Tasmania, and has a population just a touch smaller than South Australia.
So as you can see, Estonia isn’t tiny, but it certainly isn’t a big place. But as the old saying goes, good things come in small packages!




