Ever wondered what it’s like to grow up in a tiny country? Well, read on to find out!
Many thanks to the Redditors who responded. You can check out more answers from the source at the end of this article.
1. Iceland. Population 330 000
Pros are everyone knows everyone else.
Cons. Exact same thing.
kim-fatassian
2. I’m from Estonia (though currently living in London) which isn’t as tiny as Andorra or Liechtenstein but still relatively small.
Although there are other factors as well, one thing I’ve noticed is the effect of everyone knowing everyone (as is the case in a small country) vs the anonymity of a big city like London. This manifests itself in a weird way:
I’m a big gym goer and in London I see it all the time that people just walk off leaving weights lying around and not cleaning up after themselves. Maybe partially because here they’re one in a very big crowd, nobody will know who didn’t unload that barbell.
In Estonia however the gyms are much more orderly: people always take their weights off and put things back and I think it’s to do with it being more easily visible if you’re acting like a douche.
Anonymity breeds douchebaggery, familiarity counteracts it.
snakesnake9
3. I live in Moldova, Republic of. The cons definitely outweigh the pros some of them being:
-FIRST AND FOREMOST: The absolute worst thing is that many top sellers from sites like amazon and ebay don’t ship to your country. This leads to the next point.
-Due to the limited population and geographical resourses most manufacturers do not open in Moldova thus you have to pay around 40% more to buy foreign stuff.
-Increased level of corruption due to lack of interest from other countries.
-Due to the small size of the country, Moldova is only bordered by 2 countries and doesn’t have access to a sea or any mountains.
Pros: Can’t really think any but if I have to say it may be that there are no terrorist attacks.
Rockcast
4. Malta- basically everyone here is bilingual, if not multilingual. English & Maltese- yes we have our own language (its basically just a lot of plagiarised languages with a few unique words). So if you wanna move here, DON’T WORRY!
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You don’t have to put any effort in to learn a language.
Our busses are cheap but don’t sit in the wrong place or a granny will stare you down. If you wanna move here, you need a small loan of a million dollars. Don’t ask what our strange “H” is, we don’t even know. Geckos. Everywhere.
Please don’t pick them up or hurt them 🙁 Chameleons. Don’t hurt them, they are rare & they are shy as it is. Our language is a mix of Arabic, Italian & a tiny bit of Latin throw in cause why not. Our climate is Meditteranian until about November, then screw you, thunderstorms & hail included. All in all, it’s pretty great, just expensive to move here :/
ReallySittyStories
5. Coming from Luxembourg. Public Transportation inside the whole country is extremley cheap. Also its really easy to meet up with people, the travel times are short and in the Central Capital you can find anything.
migigame
6. Northern Ireland – we get dual Irish & British citizenship.
Fordy4020
7. I hail from Guernsey, Channel Islands, population ~60,000 (about the same as Greenland or Stourbridge in Worcestershire). It’s a British Crown Dependency.
It is, of course, pretty small. You can drive from one side of the island to the other in about 25 minutes at our national speed limit of 35 mph. You can walk it in about 4 hours. I still haven’t learned to drive yet even though I could have done 5 years ago.
We have one town, which we know as Town. It’s still a bustling metropolis if you come from one of our dependencies, Alderney (pop. 2,000) or Sark (pop. 500).
Given what’s been going on in the world, I’m grateful for our politics being pretty boring. We don’t have any political parties, and our issues aren’t stuff like starting a trade war, it’s how to fund a new high school and complaining about the ferry operator.
I’ve been living in Singapore (a big country :P) for the last few months and nobody here has heard of it. I have to show it to them on the map, or lie and say I’m from the UK.
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And inevitably when I do show it to them I have to explain that no we’re not part of the UK, yes I’m a British citizen, it says European Union on my passport, but we’re not part of the EU, but I stand to lose my rights to live in it, thanks Britain, and we don’t have an army but the British are supposed to defend us and we’ve only been invaded once in 1940 but they didn’t then bla bla bla
Naturally it’s a very close-knit community. And if you know a Guernseyman in Singapore it’s probably me. Hai.
Also, tax haven.
Facepilot
8. I lived in Singapore for a while.
Advantage:
It only takes a little (relatively speaking) foreign direct investment to make the country feel wealthy. Nation wide initiatives can be implemented very quickly, which is good as long your leaders are well intentioned. Socialized services are much easier to maintain, so they generally meet or exceed expectations.
Disadvantage:
Recreational activities within the country are very limited. If you stay long enough and sleep with enough locals, you will eventually have sex with your cousin. Cultural homogeneity, which is tougher on people that grew up in more diverse places like the US. It gets boring.
brokejew
9. Singapore. Awesome public transport system, but absolutely disgusting car prices. No matter how great the subway is, a car is better and I’d rather be able to buy a car. Why can’t I buy a car? Because I’ve only got two kidneys, and even if I sold them both, I wouldn’t be able to spend my last day or so driving around.
LeviAEthan512
10. I live in Switzerland, which is bigger than Lichtenstein, but still “small” compared to its neighbors countries.
I don’t really see any advantage in living in a small country. The biggest disadvantage IMHO is having a dead downtown with shops that close at 6PM.
denvit
11. Lived in Andorra for a while. Nice place, not much to do and really expensive. I also destroyed a hotel room…
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I flooded it with 2 inches of water, payed in cash and left the country. I was there for a bit, and knew the staff so I will probably never go back.
ElliottPolin
12. Slovenia. I can drive to the other side of the country in 3 hours.
rabbit4u
13. Has anyone ever heard of Bhutan?
Pros:
the environment. For sure. We are known for our environment. Clean and crisp air. It feels good to live here and I don’t think half the people here realise how good we have it. And I guess free education and health care are there too. Free education till high school. And even after that, lots of scholarships are given out. And the population is guess we don’t even make up to a million people. So it’s not crowded?
Cons:
it’s still an underdeveloped country and we have a long way to go. We basically surevive off funds. And I guess this will be a con for some people, there was a proposal to open fast food chains here like McDonald’s and all; the government denied it. Oh and for tourists, it’s insanely difficult to get into the country.
nameistaken8736
14. Bula! I live in Fiji, and like many Pacific Island countries the major con is the isolation. We are a great distance from all of our neighbours, and certain food items are straight up impossible to get (or are very expensive). You won’t believe what we are willing to pay for some blueberries.
But that aside, I’ve never found the small size to be a huge problem. I grew up in the United States, and at the end of the day people can only manage social circles of a certain size.
Being in a small island community hasn’t made my social circle any larger or smaller. You do end up knowing a lot of people nearly everywhere you go, but that same phenomena occurs in small city in the United States all the time. In general, the culture and interests we share as a people makes everywhere you go feel very welcoming.
And most people don’t know this, but Fiji is made up of over 300 islands, so the amount of exploring in completely empty, near perfect islands you can do is endless 🙂
BlackandBlue14
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15. I’m from Uruguay a really small country in South America. Advantages: We can drive from south to north of the country in only 7:30 hours. We have a really nice weather and beautiful beaches. Disadvantages: Sometimes it’s really boring to live here.
nachowalker
16. Bermuda! Population 65k. Obvious advantages of sun, pink beaches and spectacular scenery as well as expats from all over the world. Disadvantages are cost of living, hurricanes, difficulty getting off the rock and the tininess of the island(s). Coming from a similar sized island with 1/6th of the population off the West Coast of Canada helped a lot with the adjustment. Loving the milder winter temperatures.
CanadianIslander
17. I’m from a small island off the coast of France but part of Britain, population of roughly 100,000.
Pros – great beaches and good weather in comparison to the rest of Britain
High average wage, low unemployment, low crime rates.
Cons – high cost of living and property.
MyDogHasBarkingsons
18. Antigua and Barbuda. Population ~100,000
Cons:
There isn’t much to do besides drink and go to the beach.
You can’t buy things online and have them shipped here because no online stores ship here. You have to go through a US mail forwarder which is costly. Shopping locally is even more costly and the selection sucks.
High cost of living.
“Island time” is a real thing. People will always arrive to events/gatherings late and events never start on time.
Pros:
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Island time is also a pro. Everyone moves at their own pace and you can too. It’s a small island, we’re not in a rush to go anywhere.
It might just be the people I hang out with, but few have regular 9-5 jobs so it’s not unusual to find yourself having a beer on the beach with friends on some random Wednesday afternoon.
Low crime rate.
Low population means everyone knows everyone, like a small town (might be a con for some but I like it).
whitefoot
19. Costa Rica: 5 million people.
GOOD: Public transport is cheap and ubiquitous. Medicines are largely OTC and pharmacists can recommend medications for typical problems. Socialized medicine with a single-payer model not unlike Medicare. No military and no military culture, and even “war toys” are prohibited. No heating nor cooling costs bc weather is mild year around. Civil disobedience is a tradition, and protests are taught in the schools, protesting is practiced regularly. The whole country has a very high walkability scale. You can easily use public transport for longer distances, and easily walk to your basic needs from almost any home (market, bank, bakery, post office, bus stops).
BAD: Most things are imported, and are expensive due to taxes. Corruption is rampant. Petty theft and property theft (like through title theft) is rampant.
berned-out
20. I used to live in Nepal until I was 8. The country was super small and when I lived there, everybody hated the king and wanted a democracy so there were a ton of crowds protesting and etc. It was pretty crazy. Pros are that food in comparison to the US was super duper cheap I guess. 1 USD is like 100 Rupees. I had Family in india and we went there once a year I suppose. Everybody just knew each other and would randomly drop by at houses and talk and stuff. Im probably wrong but It felt safer there too, since we knew everybody people would just keep on eye on each other’s kids.
AL2002
21. I live in Togo right now, which is smaller than Switzerland but slightly larger than the Netherlands. If the roads allowed travel above an average speed of 30km/hr one would be able to drive from the boarder of Benin to Ghana in less than in hour. If the roads were modern one would be able to drive from the northernmost point to the southernmost point in 7 hours.
The reality is, however, that travelling here sucks. It is dangerous and expensive to the average Togolese citizen. Therefore, many people only rarely visit outside their cultural region. Because of this Togo feels like a much larger country culturally. (I’m coming from the midwest U.S). There are four or five major cultures/languages that each have their own customs and distinct personalities. Also, because Togo is long and skinny, it has a few different climate zones, with the south being hot and humid but not rainy, the central part being more rainy and foresty, and the northenmost part being dry savannah. People here understand Togo is small because they have been told so, and they’ve seen maps. But the majority of people will never fully grasp the vastness of the U.S. or the world.
It’s hard to state the advantages or disadvantages of it being small because it’s an underdeveloped West African nation, so there are mostly just disadvantages. I will say that it’s really neat to be able to drive for three hours and arrive in a place that has a different climate, culture, language, food, and resources than the place you left. Almost everything else i can think of is a challenge or a disadvantage.
ReddicaCrahead
racorn / shutterstock.com