What is the smallest country in Africa?

The smallest country in Africa is Seychelles, a group of islands off the continent's east coast. The smallest country on the mainland of the continent is The Gambia.

Seychelles has an area of 177 square miles, or 455 square kilometers, which is around 2.5 times the size of Washington, D.C., The Gambia has an area of 4,007 square miles, or 11,295 square kilometers, a little less than twice the size of Delaware. The Gambia is so small because the British created it as a colony expressly in order to control the Gambia River, which flows through the middle of the country. Therefore, it consists primarily of the river and the land on the side of the river and not much else.