Wikipedia portal for content related to Vatican City
Welcome to the Vatican City Portal
The flag of Vatican City
Vatican City (), officially the Vatican City State (Italian : Stato della Città del Vaticano ; Latin : Status Civitatis Vaticanae ), is a landlocked sovereign country , city-state , microstate , and enclave within Rome , Italy. It became independent from Italy in 1929 with the Lateran Treaty , and it is a distinct territory under "full ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdiction" of the Holy See , itself a sovereign entity under international law , which maintains the city-state's temporal power and governance , diplomatic , and spiritual independence . The Vatican is also a metonym for the pope , the city-state's and worldwide Catholic Church government Holy See, and Roman Curia .
With an area of 49 hectares (121 acres) and as of 2023 a population of about 764, it is the smallest state in the world both by area and by population . As governed by the Holy See, Vatican City State is an ecclesiastical or sacerdotal -monarchical state ruled by the Pope, who is the bishop of Rome and head of the Catholic Church . The highest state functionaries are all Catholic clergy of various origins. After the Avignon Papacy (1309–1377) the popes have mainly resided at the Apostolic Palace within what is now Vatican City, although at times residing instead in the Quirinal Palace in Rome or elsewhere. (Full article... )
Selected article
The
flag of Vatican City was adopted on June 7, 1929, the year
Pope Pius XI signed the
Lateran Treaty with
Italy , creating a new independent state governed by the Holy See. The Vatican flag is modeled on the flag of the earlier
Papal States .
The flag consists of two vertical bands, one of gold (hoist side) and one of white with the crossed keys of Saint Peter and the Papal Tiara centered in the white band. The crossed keys consist of a golden and a silver key, in which the silver key is placed in the dexter position. The flag is one of only two square country flags in the world, the other being the flag of Switzerland . The yellow and white stripes break the heraldic rule of tincture .
Selected image
Credit: Giovanni Paolo Panini
The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter (Latin : Basilica Sancti Petri ), officially known in Italian as Basilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano and commonly known as Saint Peter's Basilica , is a Late Renaissance church located within the Vatican City .
Subcategories
Category puzzle
Select [►] to view subcategories
The following are images from various Vatican City-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 1 Enlargeable, detailed map of Vatican City (from
Geography of Vatican City )
Image 2 Members of the Canadian
Royal 22nd Regiment in audience with
Pope Pius XII , following the 1944 Liberation of Rome. (from
Vatican City during World War II )
Image 4 Map of Vatican City (from
Geography of Vatican City )
Image 5 Pasta is popular in the Vatican, being one of
Pope Francis ' favorite dishes. (from
Culture of Vatican City )
Image 6 President
Barack Obama and First Lady
Michelle Obama meet with
Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican on July 10, 2009. (from
Women in Vatican City )
Image 7 An
ATM in Vatican City with
Latin instructions (from
Economy of Vatican City )
Image 8 A monument to
Fr. Maximilian Kolbe , among the estimated 3,000 members (18%) of the Polish clergy who were killed by the Nazis; of these, 1,992 died in concentration camps. (from
Vatican City during World War II )
Image 9 Bernardino Nogara , the chief Vatican financier during the war (from
Vatican City during World War II )
Image 10 Polish ambassador to the Vatican,
Kazimierz Papée , was critical of Pius XII's pre-war mediation efforts. (from
Vatican City during World War II )
Image 11 Palace of the Governorate of Vatican City State (from
Gardens of Vatican City )
Image 12 Armenian cross monument (
Khatchkar ) inside the Vatican Gardens (from
Gardens of Vatican City )
Image 13 Vatican Gardens (from
Gardens of Vatican City )
Image 14 The
Little Flower ,
Saint Therese of Lisieux is the official Patroness of the gardens. (from
Gardens of Vatican City )
Image 15 Empress
Saint Helena of Constantinople carrying the One
True Cross laying the grounds for the gardens using the sacred soil from
Mount Calvary . (from
Gardens of Vatican City )
Image 16 The Fountain of the Eagle "
Fontana dell'Aquilone " in the Vatican Gardens (from
Gardens of Vatican City )
Image 17 Part of the Vatican Gardens (from
Gardens of Vatican City )
Image 19 The
Vatican City came into existence in 1929, a decade before the start of World War II (from
Vatican City during World War II )
Image 20 Vatican Gardens (from
Gardens of Vatican City )
Image 21 The crowds of tourists in
St. Peter's Square are a target for pickpockets. (from
Crime in Vatican City )
Did you know?
Related portals
WikiProjects
Things to do
Here are some tasks awaiting attention:
–When a task is completed, please remove it from the list.
Selected panorama
Saint Peter's Square
Associated Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
Commons Free media repository
Wikibooks Free textbooks and manuals
Wikidata Free knowledge base
Wikinews Free-content news
Wikiquote Collection of quotations
Wikisource Free-content library
Wikiversity Free learning tools
Wikivoyage Free travel guide
Wiktionary Dictionary and thesaurus
External Resources
Sources
Purge server cache
Recent Comments