The Gambia is a very small country: it covers roughly 11,000–11,300 square kilometers in total, which is about 4,300–4,400 square miles.

Basic size facts

  • Total area is usually quoted at about 11,300 km² (≈4,400 sq mi) , including land and inland water.
  • Land area alone is around 10,000–10,100 km² , with the rest made up of the Gambia River and other water bodies.
  • The country is often described as slightly less than twice the size of Delaware and a bit smaller than Jamaica.

Shape and dimensions

  • The Gambia is long and narrow, stretching along both banks of the Gambia River.
  • It is roughly 480 km (about 300 miles) long from west to east but only about 20–50 km (12–31 miles) wide north to south in most places.
  • It has a short Atlantic coastline of about 80 km (50 miles) at its western end.

Regional comparison

  • It is the smallest non‑island country in mainland Africa , making it geographically tiny compared with most of its neighbors.
  • Despite its small size, its narrow strip follows the river through varied landscapes, from coastal dunes and wetlands to inland woodlands and savanna.

In everyday terms, The Gambia is a thin ribbon of land along a river, about the size of a small U.S. state, wrapped almost entirely by Senegal.

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