When is a state bigger than a country?

It's a big planet, and it's surface is mostly water. However, there are some pretty big land masses on our Earth.

The United States is a big country ─ 3.8 million square miles ─ and second only to Russia (6.6 million square miles) in land area, although it is tied with Canada for the second spot.

So it is understandable that some of the states in our country are pretty big, too.

Arizona is 113,998 square miles in area and is the sixth largest after Alaska, Texas, California, Montana and New Mexico.

But there are whole countries on our fair Earth that are smaller in area than Arizona, so we decided to check a few of them out to see how a few countries could fit inside Arizona.

In some cases, the maps ( in the same relative size) could be dropped on a map of Arizona with nothing crossing Arizona's border. In others a little rotating was necessary.

There are several countries with fewer square miles that Arizona that would only fit inside Arizona if they were cut into pieces and arranged like a puzzle.

We present here a small sampling of countries that are smaller than Arizona. There are many more, but this will offer an interesting perspective and perhaps a lesson in geography as well.

And in case you were wondering: The smallest country? It's Vatican City at 0.17 square miles. Even South Tucson has that beat, at least in land area if not in prestige.

Sources are Google maps and many other geographical references.