Short answer
- The smallest state in the USA is Rhode Island, at 1,545 square miles in total area. It is followed, in order, by Delaware at 2,489 square miles, Connecticut at 5,543 square miles, New Jersey at 8,723 square miles, New Hampshire at 9,349 square miles, Vermont at 9,616 square miles, Massachusetts at 10,554 square miles, Hawaii at 10,932 square miles, Maryland at 12,406 square miles, and West Virginia at 24,230 square miles. Those ten are the smallest in the country ranked by total area, meaning land plus inland and coastal water inside the state boundary. Nine sit in the eastern United States; the exception, Hawaii, is an island state in the Pacific. This article is the list article: it gives the ranking, the capitals, and the pattern behind the list in brief. Rhode Island and Alaska each get a full article of their own, noted at the end rather than repeated here.
What counts as small, and how this article ranks the states
Before any list of small states can be trusted, the ranking method has to be stated plainly, because two honest methods give slightly different orders. This article ranks states by total area. Total area is the land area of a state plus the water area counted inside its boundary, including lakes, rivers, bays, and coastal water under state jurisdiction. It is the figure used by Encyclopaedia Britannica for its list of the ten smallest states, and it is the figure most readers mean when they ask which state is smallest. Every rank, figure, and comparison in this article uses total area unless a sentence says otherwise in so many words.
The other common method is land area alone, which counts only dry land and leaves water out. Rhode Island is smallest by either method, and Delaware and Connecticut are second and third by either method, so the top of the list does not change. Lower down, the order does change: Hawaii ranks eighth by total area but fourth by land area alone, because much of its total area is water, while New Jersey moves the other way, from fourth to fifth. Massachusetts shuffles by one place, and New Hampshire and Vermont each shuffle by two places. Neither method is wrong, but a list that mixes them, taking one state’s land figure and another state’s total figure, will quietly produce a false order. This article does not do that: the table below is total area throughout, and a later section explains the land area order separately.
Two more boundaries keep the list clean. First, this list covers the 50 states only. Washington DC is smaller than Rhode Island, at 68 square miles in total area, but it is a federal district, not a state, so it is not ranked here. The same applies to the territories, such as Puerto Rico and Guam, which are not states. Second, small in this article means small in area, not small in population, wealth, or importance. A state can be tiny on the map and large in population, and a state can be vast in area and small in population. That distinction matters a great deal for the states below, and it is taken up in its own section later.
The ten smallest states, ranked
The table gives the ten smallest states by total area, with each state capital in brief. The full list of all 50 states and capitals is a separate article, and readers who want capital detail should use that article rather than expecting this list to repeat it.
| Rank by total area | State | Capital | Total area (square miles) | Total area (square kilometers) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rhode Island | Providence | 1,545 | 4,001 |
| 2 | Delaware | Dover | 2,489 | 6,446 |
| 3 | Connecticut | Hartford | 5,543 | 14,357 |
| 4 | New Jersey | Trenton | 8,723 | 22,591 |
| 5 | New Hampshire | Concord | 9,349 | 24,214 |
| 6 | Vermont | Montpelier | 9,616 | 24,906 |
| 7 | Massachusetts | Boston | 10,554 | 27,336 |
| 8 | Hawaii | Honolulu | 10,932 | 28,313 |
| 9 | Maryland | Annapolis | 12,406 | 32,131 |
| 10 | West Virginia | Charleston | 24,230 | 62,756 |
Read the table from top to bottom and one pattern stands out at once: the gaps are uneven. Rhode Island and Delaware are in a class of their own, both under 2,500 square miles. Connecticut is more than twice the size of Delaware but still far smaller than most states. Then comes a cluster of states between about 8,700 and 12,400 square miles, New Jersey through Maryland, each close enough in size that a different ranking method can shuffle them. Then comes a jump: West Virginia, in tenth place, is nearly twice the size of Maryland in ninth place, at 24,230 square miles. In other words, there is no neat staircase of small states. There are two very small states, one small state, a tight middle group, and then a clear break before the rest of the country begins.
The ten smallest states in brief
Rhode Island, first, capital Providence, is the smallest state by both total area and land area. The United States Census Bureau gives its land area as 1,033.8 square miles, which means about a third of its 1,545 square mile total area is water, a share explained by Narragansett Bay and the state’s long, indented coastline. The official Rhode Island state government site gives a shoreline of 384 miles, which helps explain the state’s nickname, the Ocean State. Rhode Island was the last of the original thirteen states to ratify the Constitution, on May 29, 1790. This article keeps Rhode Island brief on purpose: a separate article covers the smallest state in depth.
Delaware, second, capital Dover, is the only state besides Rhode Island under 2,500 square miles in total area. It is also the first state in another sense: Delaware was the first to ratify the United States Constitution, in 1787, which is why it is called the First State. Delaware sits on the Delmarva Peninsula, bordered by Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey across Delaware Bay, and its compact shape reflects its colonial history as a small territory between larger neighbors. Dover is not the state’s largest city: Wilmington is larger, a useful reminder that a capital need not be the biggest city in a state.
Connecticut, third, capital Hartford, is more than twice the size of Delaware but still less than a quarter of the size of West Virginia in tenth place. Connecticut is a New England state with a coastline on Long Island Sound. Its nickname, the Constitution State, points to the Fundamental Orders of 1639, an early written framework of government adopted by the Connecticut River towns. Hartford sits on the Connecticut River near the center of the state.
New Jersey, fourth, capital Trenton, is a state many readers think of as crowded rather than small, and both descriptions fit. It is compact, at 8,723 square miles in total area, and also one of the most densely settled states in the country, squeezed between New York City and Philadelphia. Trenton sits on the Delaware River. New Jersey is one of the states whose rank changes with the ranking method: fourth by total area but fifth by land area, because Hawaii has a larger share of water in its total area than New Jersey does.
New Hampshire, fifth, capital Concord, and Vermont, sixth, capital Montpelier, are best read as a pair, because they share a long border and a similar New England character while differing in one important respect. New Hampshire reaches the Atlantic at Portsmouth, with a short coastline, while Vermont is the only landlocked state in New England, bordered by New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Canada. Montpelier is also the smallest state capital in the country by population. Concord, likewise, is a modest city rather than a large metropolis.
Massachusetts, seventh, capital Boston, may surprise readers who expect it to rank larger, because Massachusetts feels like a major state in American history, and it is. Size and historical weight are different things. Boston was a leading colonial port and a center of the movement for independence, yet the state as a whole covers only 10,554 square miles in total area. Part of the reason is historical: Maine, once part of Massachusetts, became a separate state in 1820, so modern Massachusetts is smaller than the Massachusetts of the colonial period.
Hawaii, eighth, capital Honolulu, is the great exception in this list. It is the only state in the ten smallest that is not in the eastern United States, the only one made up entirely of islands, and the only one admitted to the Union in 1959 as an island chain. Its total area of 10,932 square miles includes a great deal of water, so its land area is far smaller, which is why it jumps to fourth place when states are ranked by land area alone. Honolulu, on the island of Oahu, is both the capital and by far the largest city in the state. Hawaii breaks the colonial pattern that explains the other nine states: it was not one of the original thirteen colonies.
Maryland, ninth, capital Annapolis, wraps around Chesapeake Bay, and the bay and its tributaries account for a large part of the state’s water area, which is why its total area is considerably larger than its land area. Annapolis, on the bay, was an early colonial capital. Like Delaware, Maryland is placed by the Census Bureau in the South region, even though everyday speech often groups it with the Mid-Atlantic or Northeast.
West Virginia, tenth, capital Charleston, closes the list with a jump. At 24,230 square miles, it is nearly twice the size of Maryland, which raises a fair question: why is a state of that size counted among the smallest at all? The answer is that the states beyond the top ten grow quickly, and West Virginia is the last state under 25,000 square miles. Its history also sets it apart: it was formed during the Civil War, when the western counties of Virginia separated from Virginia and entered the Union as a new state in 1863. Its mountain terrain has shaped its settlement and economy far more than its raw area figure suggests.
Where the small states cluster
Nine of the ten smallest states sit in the eastern United States, and six of them, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, sit in the Northeast as the Census Bureau defines it. Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia are counted in the South region by the same classification, but all three sit on or near the Atlantic seaboard or its near hinterland. Only Hawaii sits outside the east. That clustering is not a coincidence, and it is not a trick of the ranking method. It is the visible result of how the United States grew.
The eastern states are, for the most part, the oldest states. Seven of the ten smallest, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, were among the original thirteen colonies that became the first thirteen states. Those colonies were founded along a narrow strip of Atlantic coastline, hemmed in on the west by the Appalachian Mountains and on the east by the sea. Their charters and boundaries were drawn by a distant government working from incomplete maps, and they were drawn to settle a coastline, not to divide a continent. A colony that began as a coastal settlement with a river valley behind it had no reason, and no practical means, to claim hundreds of thousands of square miles of interior land it could not govern.
Later states were drawn differently. As settlement moved west, new states were carved from large territories, often using lines of latitude and longitude rather than rivers and colonial grants. Texas, admitted in 1845, kept the vast territory of the former Republic of Texas, and California, admitted in 1850, took in a huge stretch of the Pacific coast and its interior. None of that later process produced a state as small as Rhode Island or Delaware, because the aim was to organize large, sparsely settled territories, not to separate small coastal communities that already had distinct identities.
Hawaii is the exception that proves the pattern. Its boundaries were not drawn on the Atlantic coast at all. They are the boundaries of an island chain, and an island chain can only ever be as large as its islands. Hawaii is small for a geographical reason, not a colonial one: the land simply stops at the sea in every direction, and there is no interior to expand into.
Why so many small states are old states
It is tempting to say that small states are small because they are old, and in broad terms that is true, but the fuller story has three parts, and each part matters. The first part is the colonial charter. Each colony began as a grant or charter that described a stretch of coast and a depth of land behind it, and those grants overlapped, conflicted, and were fought over for generations. Rhode Island, for example, began as a refuge for settlers who had left Massachusetts Bay over religious disagreements, and its territory was always a small patch between larger, stronger neighbors. Delaware began as a separate territory within the orbit of Pennsylvania and kept a distinct identity that eventually became statehood. Small beginnings, kept distinct by religion, politics, or a separate charter, tended to stay small, because there was no later moment when a larger neighbor simply absorbed them.
The second part is that the original states, once independent, had no incentive to merge. The Constitution gave each state equal representation in the Senate regardless of size, and it protected existing state boundaries against change without the consent of the states concerned. A small state that joined the Union as an equal partner had every reason to keep its borders and its voice. The system therefore froze the small colonial map in place even as the country grew enormously around it.
The third part is the later history of division and admission. Vermont, the sixth smallest state, grew out of a disputed territory between New York and New Hampshire and entered the Union in 1791 as a separate state. West Virginia, the tenth smallest, was created by division when it separated from Virginia in 1863. Both show that small states could still be created after independence, but only by splitting an existing state or settling a disputed borderland, not by drawing a small state out of empty western territory.
Small states beside the largest states
The contrast with the largest states puts the small state list in perspective. Alaska, the largest state, covers 665,384 square miles in total area. That is about 431 times the total area of Rhode Island, a ratio Britannica states in rounded form as about one four hundredth: Rhode Island is about one four hundredth the size of Alaska. Put another way, the ten smallest states put together cover 95,387 square miles in total area, which is just over one seventh of Alaska alone, and less than the total area of California, the third largest state. Texas, the second largest state, covers about 268,600 square miles in total area, which is more than 170 times the area of Rhode Island and nearly three times the combined area of all ten smallest states. A reader who has driven across Texas will have covered more ground in that one state than in a tour of all ten smallest states combined, and will still have seen only a fraction of Alaska.
| State | Rank by total area | Total area (square miles) | Comparison with Rhode Island |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska | Largest, 1st | 665,384 | About 431 times Rhode Island |
| Texas | 2nd | About 268,600 | About 174 times Rhode Island |
| California | 3rd | About 163,700 | About 106 times Rhode Island |
| Rhode Island | Smallest, 50th | 1,545 | The baseline for this table |
| Ten smallest combined | Not a state | 95,387 | About 62 times Rhode Island, just over one seventh of Alaska |
These comparisons are about area only, and they should not be read as comparisons of importance, population, or economic weight. Alaska is vast and sparsely settled, with a population of roughly three quarters of a million. New Jersey, the fourth smallest state by area, has a population many times larger than Alaska’s. The map is not a league table of significance. It is a record of how land was divided at different times for different reasons, and the largest and smallest states are products of different eras of that division.
The contrast also explains why the small states feel different to travel in. In the Northeast, a traveler can pass through several states in a single day, because the states themselves are short distances across. In the West, a traveler can spend a whole day inside a single state and still be far from its border.
What changes if you rank by land area alone
Because so many online lists mix total area and land area without saying so, it is worth setting out the land area order for the same ten states, so that a reader who meets a different list elsewhere can see why it differs rather than assuming that one list or the other is simply wrong. Ranked by land area alone, using Census Bureau land figures, the order is: Rhode Island first, Delaware second, Connecticut third, Hawaii fourth, New Jersey fifth, Massachusetts sixth, New Hampshire seventh, Vermont eighth, Maryland ninth, and West Virginia tenth. The same ten states appear, and the first three and the last two are unchanged. The movement is all in the middle: Hawaii rises from eighth to fourth, New Jersey falls from fourth to fifth, Massachusetts rises from seventh to sixth, and New Hampshire and Vermont each fall two places.
The reason is water. Hawaii, Maryland, and Rhode Island all have large water shares, because of island coasts, Chesapeake Bay, and Narragansett Bay respectively. When water is removed from the calculation, states with a high water share shrink more than states with little water. New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Vermont, which have smaller water shares, therefore look relatively larger on a land only list even though their total areas have not changed. A reader who compares a land area list with this article’s total area list and finds Hawaii in a different position has not found an error in either list. They have found the two methods doing what they are defined to do.
For most everyday purposes, total area is the better headline figure, because it describes the state as it appears on a map, water included, and it matches the figure used by Britannica and by most general reference lists. For questions about how much dry ground a state contains, land area is the better figure, and it should be named as such. The mistake to avoid is using one figure while calling it the other, or switching methods halfway down a list.
Small in area does not mean small in population
One of the most common misunderstandings about small states is that small on the map must mean small in every other way. It does not. Area and population rank the states in very different orders, and confusing the two leads to confident errors. Rhode Island, the smallest state by area, is not the smallest state by population. That distinction belongs to Wyoming, a large western state with a small population, which shows how little area alone predicts how many people live in a state. At the other end, New Jersey, the fourth smallest state by area, is among the most populous states in the country, because its small area is densely settled between two great metropolitan regions. Massachusetts, seventh smallest by area, is also a populous state, anchored by Boston and its surrounding cities.
Population density makes the point even more sharply. Density is population divided by land area, and on that measure the small northeastern states rank near the top of the country, while the large western states rank near the bottom. A small state can therefore feel busy and urban, while a large state can feel empty and remote. Area tells you how much ground there is. It does not tell you how many people share it.
The same caution applies to political weight. Every state, large or small, sends two senators to Washington, so Rhode Island and California have equal representation in the Senate despite the enormous difference in their area and population. In the House of Representatives, seats are allocated by population, so larger states have more representatives. Small states are equal partners in one chamber and junior partners by population in the other, the compromise struck at the founding.
Frequently asked questions
What is the smallest state in the USA?
Rhode Island is the smallest state in the USA by total area, at 1,545 square miles, and also the smallest by land area, at about 1,034 square miles. Its capital is Providence. A separate article covers Rhode Island in depth, including its coastline, history, and cities.
What are the five smallest states in the USA?
Ranked by total area, the five smallest states are Rhode Island (1,545 square miles), Delaware (2,489 square miles), Connecticut (5,543 square miles), New Jersey (8,723 square miles), and New Hampshire (9,349 square miles). Ranked by land area alone, the fifth place changes: Hawaii takes fourth place and New Jersey takes fifth, because Hawaii has a larger share of water in its total area.
What is the second smallest state in the USA?
Delaware is the second smallest state in the USA by total area, at 2,489 square miles, and also second by land area. Its capital is Dover, and it was the first state to ratify the United States Constitution, in 1787.
Is Hawaii a small state?
Yes, Hawaii ranks eighth by total area at 10,932 square miles and fourth by land area. It is the only one of the ten smallest states outside the eastern United States, and its small size reflects its geography as an island chain rather than colonial history on the Atlantic coast.
Is Washington DC smaller than Rhode Island?
Yes, Washington DC, at 68 square miles in total area, is far smaller than Rhode Island, but it is not a state. It is a federal district, so it does not appear in a ranking of the 50 states. The same applies to the territories, which are not states either.
What is the largest state in the USA?
Alaska is the largest state in the USA, at 665,384 square miles in total area, which is about 431 times the total area of Rhode Island. Texas is second and California is third. A separate article covers Alaska, the largest state, in depth, and this list article does not repeat that coverage.
Why are most small states in the Northeast?
Most small states began as small coastal colonies founded along the Atlantic seaboard, hemmed in by the sea and the Appalachian Mountains, and their boundaries were preserved when they joined the Union as equal states. Later western states were carved from large territories, so they are much larger. Hawaii is the exception: it is small because it is an island chain.
Does a small state have less political power than a large state?
Not in the Senate, where every state has two senators regardless of size. In the House of Representatives, seats are allocated by population, so larger and more populous states have more representatives. Small states therefore have an equal voice in one chamber and a smaller voice by population in the other, which is the compromise struck at the founding of the republic.
Keep reading: US States and Capitals: The Complete List of All 50
Sources & references
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, "What is the smallest state in the U.S. by area?" Total area figures and ranking for the ten smallest states and for Alaska, opened and read on October 24, 2026.
- United States Census Bureau, Guide to State and Local Census Geography, Rhode Island: land area 1,033.8 square miles, capital Providence, statehood May 29, 1790, and the statement that Rhode Island is the smallest in land area of the 50 states, opened and read on October 24, 2026.
- State of Rhode Island, RI.gov Facts and Figures: land area 1,033.89 square miles in 2020, shoreline 384 miles, largest city Providence, opened and read on October 24, 2026.
- Amberaisle article AMB-149, "US States and Capitals," live on amberaisle.com, for the capital pairings in the ranking table, read in the site's article file on October 24, 2026.
- United States Census Bureau state geography material consulted for the land area order and for the Census region groupings discussed in this article, including the placement of Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia in the South region. Figures taken from search result summaries of Census Bureau material are flagged as qualified in the writer ledger for independent QA to confirm against the Census Bureau table before publication.
