Andorra

Andorra, officially the Principality of Andorra, is a landlocked microstate on the Iberian Peninsula in the eastern Pyrenees of southwestern Europe, bordered by France to the north and Spain to the south, with Andorra la Vella, the highest capital city in Europe, as its capital. Believed to have been created by Charlemagne, the territory was ruled by the count of Urgell until 988, when it passed to the Diocese of Urgell, and it was formed as a polity by a charter in 1278 that made it a lordship within the Principality of Catalonia until 1715. It is headed today by two co-princes, the Bishop of Urgell in Catalonia and the president of France, an arrangement unique among sovereign states. Andorra is the sixth-smallest state in Europe and the largest of the European microstates, with an area of 468 square kilometers and an estimated population of about 90,000 as of 2026, descended from the Catalans and speaking Catalan as the sole official language. Tourism brings roughly 8 million visitors annually; Andorra is not a member of the European Union but has belonged to the Council of Europe and the United Nations since 1993.