how big is barbados

Barbados is a small island country of about 430–432 square kilometers in land area (around 166–167 square miles).

Quick Scoop

Basic size stats

• Land area: about 430–432 km² (roughly 166–167 sq mi).

• Rough length: about 20–21 miles (32–34 km).

• Rough width: about 14–15 miles (23–25 km) at its widest.

• Coastline: about 97 km (around 60 miles).

In everyday terms, Barbados is:

• A bit over one third the size of the U.S. state of Rhode Island by land area.

• In the same ballpark as the city of San Francisco in area.

A quick mental picture

If you imagine driving from the far south to the far north, you’d cover the island in under an hour without heavy traffic, because the maximum north–south stretch is only about 34 km (21 miles). Going coast to coast east–west is even shorter at roughly 23–25 km (14–15 miles).

Despite being compact on land, Barbados controls a huge surrounding maritime area—its exclusive economic zone is about 186,898 km², hundreds of times larger than its land area.

TL;DR: When people ask “how big is Barbados,” they’re usually surprised that it’s only about 430 km² of land, but surrounded by an enormous slice of ocean territory.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.