Smallest State in the USA

Short answer

• The smallest state in the USA is Rhode Island. By total area, which counts land plus water, Rhode Island covers 1,545 square miles (4,001 square kilometers). By land area alone, it covers about 1,034 square miles (2,678 square kilometers). Both figures are correct. They answer two different questions, and much of the confusion about this topic comes from mixing them up. Rhode Island is in New England, in the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the north and east, Connecticut to the west, and Rhode Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean to the south. Its capital and largest city is Providence. It was one of the original 13 states, admitted to the Union on May 29, 1790, and it is nicknamed the Ocean State because of its close connection to the sea. The rest of this article explains the two area figures and how each one is measured, puts the size into concrete comparisons, sketches in brief why Rhode Island stayed so small, describes its capital and character, and clears up the two most common confusions: smallest by area is not the same as smallest by population, and Delaware, the second smallest state, is not the smallest.

The direct answer, in full

If a reader asks only one question, “What is the smallest state in the USA?”, the complete one sentence answer is that Rhode Island is the smallest state by area, with a total area of 1,545 square miles and a land area of about 1,034 square miles. Encyclopaedia Britannica gives the same headline figure, 1,545 square miles (4,001 square kilometers), for Rhode Island as the smallest state in the United States by area, and lists Delaware second at 2,489 square miles. The U.S. Census Bureau’s state area table gives the matching breakdown: Rhode Island, total area 1,545 square miles, land area 1,034 square miles, water area 511 square miles.

That ranking holds whether land area or total area is used. Rhode Island is last on both measures, and Delaware is second on both measures. The headline answer therefore does not change when the method changes. What changes is only the size of the gap between Rhode Island and the rest of the country, and the size of the gap between Rhode Island’s own two figures.

Rhode Island sits in the far northeast of the country, tucked between two larger neighbors and the sea, in the six-state New England region. Massachusetts borders it to the north and east, Connecticut borders it to the west, and to the south lie Rhode Island Sound, Block Island Sound, and the Atlantic Ocean.

Two names need a brief note. The state’s official name is now the State of Rhode Island. For most of its history it was known by the longer name State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, a name that reflected the merger of separate colonial settlements around Narragansett Bay. The word “Rhode Island” itself originally applied to the island in Narragansett Bay that Native Americans called Aquidneck Island, and it later came to be used as shorthand for the whole colony and then the whole state. Most of the state’s land area, however, is on the mainland, not on that island. Rhode Island is a small mainland state with a bay, islands, and a coastline, not an island state in the sense that Hawaii is.

Land area versus total area: the two numbers explained

The single most important distinction in this article is between land area and total area, so it is worth setting out plainly.

Measure	Rhode Island	What it counts
Total area	1,545 square miles (4,001 square kilometers)	Land plus all water counted in the Census Bureau table
Land area	1,034 square miles (2,678 square kilometers)	Dry land as recorded in the Census Bureau geospatial database
Water area	511 square miles (1,324 square kilometers)	Inland, coastal, and territorial water in the Census Bureau table
Water share of total area	About 33 percent	Water area divided by total area

The arithmetic is simple: 1,034 plus 511 equals 1,545. The total is the land plus the water. The water share, 511 divided by 1,545, is about one third. About one third of the area counted in Rhode Island’s total is water, which is a very large share for a state, and it is the reason the two headline figures look so different.

That water is mostly Narragansett Bay and the surrounding coastal and territorial waters, not a single lake. The Census Bureau table breaks Rhode Island’s 511 square miles of water into 182 square miles of inland water, 64 square miles of coastal water, and 266 square miles of territorial water, with small rounding differences in the published total. Narragansett Bay runs about two thirds of the length of the state, according to Britannica, and it has always been the state’s greatest geographic asset: a sheltered waterway, a route for trade, a center for fishing and recreation, and the physical feature that gives the state its nickname, the Ocean State.

This is why a careful reader should always ask, when a website gives a single figure for Rhode Island’s size, which figure it is giving. A page that says “1,545 square miles” is giving total area. A page that says “1,034 square miles” is giving land area. A page that says “about 1,000 square miles” is probably rounding the land area. None of those pages is necessarily wrong, but they are not directly comparable until the reader knows which measure each one used. The warning matters most for Rhode Island, because water makes up such a large share of its total.

For most everyday purposes, total area is the figure used in rankings of “smallest state,” and it is the figure Britannica uses in its smallest state answer. For questions about how much ground there is to live on, build on, farm, or drive across, land area is the more useful figure. For population density, land area is the figure used as well: the Census Bureau’s population per square mile figures divide population by land area, not by total area. Rhode Island’s 2020 population of 1,097,379, divided by its land area of about 1,034 square miles, gives the published density of about 1,061 people per square mile.

How the figures are measured, and why older figures differ

State area figures are calculated from the boundaries recorded in the Census Bureau’s geospatial database, known as the MAF/TIGER database, and the published table states that its measurements are for statistical purposes. The method matters, because it explains why figures from different years, or from different publishers, do not always match to the last square mile.

First, land and water are classified from the recorded boundary and the recorded water features. The Census Bureau’s geography glossary explains that area is calculated from the specific boundary recorded for each entity in its geospatial database, and that its water area figures include inland, coastal, Great Lakes, and territorial sea water. That classification is why Rhode Island’s water total includes bay water and water out to the territorial limit, not just lakes and rivers inside the state.

Second, small differences between editions are normal. The Census Bureau’s QuickFacts page gives Rhode Island’s land area in 2020 as 1,033.89 square miles, while the older state area table, based on boundaries as of January 1, 2010, gives 1,034 square miles. Those are the same figure at different levels of rounding, not a disagreement. The state’s official facts page, RI.gov, also gives 1,033.89 square miles for land area in 2020, citing the Census Bureau.

Third, older and narrower totals explain the other figure a reader may meet: 1,214 square miles. Some older reference works give Rhode Island a total area of about 1,214 square miles. That older total counted a much narrower set of waters, essentially inland water, and left out most of the coastal and territorial water that the current table includes. It is not that Rhode Island grew by 331 square miles. It is that the counting rule for water changed. The ranking never changed: Rhode Island was the smallest state under the old rule and it is the smallest state under the new rule.

The same method point applies to coastline figures, which vary even more. Britannica describes Rhode Island as having more than 400 miles (640 kilometers) of coastline, and that rounded figure is the one most general sources repeat. The state’s own facts page gives a shoreline figure of 384 miles, citing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s shoreline mileage. The difference is again a matter of what is counted: a smooth outline of the coast gives a shorter figure than a detailed trace that follows every inlet, cove, and island shore. Either way, the point stands: a state with about 1,034 square miles of land has several hundred miles of shore, which is a lot of coast for very little land.

Comparisons that make the size concrete

Square miles are hard to picture. Comparisons help, provided each comparison uses figures from the same measure, so this section keeps land with land and total with total, and says which is which.

Start with the next smallest state. Delaware, the second smallest state, has a total area of 2,489 square miles and a land area of 1,949 square miles, on the same Census Bureau table. On total area, Delaware is about 1.6 times the size of Rhode Island (2,489 divided by 1,545). On land area, Delaware is about 1.9 times the size of Rhode Island (1,949 divided by 1,034). Rhode Island would fit into Delaware almost twice on land area, with room to spare, and yet Delaware is itself a small state. The gap between first and second is not close. Rhode Island is not the smallest by a whisker. It is the smallest by a wide margin, and the next state up is nearly twice its land area.

Connecticut, the third smallest state, has a total area of 5,543 square miles and a land area of 4,842 square miles. Rhode Island’s total area is less than one third of Connecticut’s total area, and its land area is a little more than one fifth of Connecticut’s land area.

Now move to the other end of the scale. Alaska, the largest state, has a total area of 665,384 square miles and a land area of 570,641 square miles, on the same Census Bureau table, and Britannica gives the same total figure for Alaska. On total area, Alaska is about 431 times the size of Rhode Island (665,384 divided by 1,545). Britannica rounds this to about one four-hundredth, describing Rhode Island as about one four-hundredth of the size of Alaska. On land area, Alaska is about 552 times the size of Rhode Island (570,641 divided by 1,034). Texas, at 268,596 square miles of total area in the older table, is about 174 times Rhode Island’s total area.

A simpler comparison uses the state’s own dimensions. At about 48 miles long and 37 miles wide, Rhode Island is a state that a driver can cross in about an hour on a main road in light traffic. The bay complicates the picture, because a straight line distance and a road distance around the bay are different things, and a journey from one coastal town to another may involve a bridge, a ferry, or a long way around the water. But the basic impression is right: Rhode Island is a state on the scale of a short journey.

Population puts the same smallness in a different light. With 1,097,379 people in the 2020 Census, Rhode Island is a small state by area with a substantial population, and its density of about 1,061 people per square mile of land is among the highest in the country. Small in area does not mean small in activity, and Rhode Island is the clearest example of that in the United States.

Why Rhode Island stayed small: a brief colonial history

Rhode Island did not become small by accident, and it did not shrink. It started small, and it stayed small, because it was founded as a cluster of separate settlements around one bay, hemmed in by larger and older neighbors, and it never acquired a western hinterland the way many other states did.

In 1636, Roger Williams, exiled from Massachusetts for his religious views, founded a settlement at the head of Narragansett Bay that he called Providence. According to the Tufts University “A New Nation Votes” history, Providence was founded as a refuge from the Puritan orthodoxy of Massachusetts Bay. In 1638, Anne and William Hutchinson and William Coddington settled on Aquidneck Island, at Portsmouth, and Coddington later founded Newport a few miles to the south. Warwick was founded by other dissenters, and the four settlements, Providence, Portsmouth, Newport, and Warwick, gradually came together as one colony.

In 1643, the colonists united in support of Williams’s voyage to England, during which he secured a patent for the colony, and in 1663 that document was superseded by a royal charter granted by Charles II, which guaranteed extensive religious toleration and provided the framework of government that lasted, in the Tufts account, until 1843. The charter is central to Rhode Island’s character: the colony was founded on freedom of conscience and on a stubborn independence that shaped its later history. Britannica makes the same point in summary, calling freedom of conscience the legacy of Roger Williams.

Geography then did the rest. To the north and east lay Massachusetts, already settled and expanding, and to the west lay Connecticut, also settled and expanding. Rhode Island’s settlements had the bay and the sea to the south, but no open frontier to the west, because the land to the west was already claimed and occupied by Connecticut. Its boundaries were essentially set by the facts of seventeenth century settlement: a small coastal territory between Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the sea.

That independence also made Rhode Island slow to join the new nation. Rhode Island was the first colony to renounce allegiance to the British Crown in 1776, according to Britannica, and it was the last of the original 13 states to ratify the United States Constitution, doing so on May 29, 1790. The delay reflected the same wariness of centralized power that had shaped the colony from the start, and it ratified only after the promise of a Bill of Rights. Once it joined, it joined as a small state, and it has remained a small state ever since, not because it failed to grow, but because its territory was fixed before the era of continental expansion began.

Providence, the capital, and the character of a small state

Providence is both the capital of Rhode Island and its largest city. It sits at the head of Narragansett Bay, where the Providence River meets the bay, and it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams. Britannica notes that Providence became the sole capital of Rhode Island in 1900, having previously shared the duty with other towns, and describes it as a seaport as well as a commercial and industrial center. It is also home to educational institutions such as Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design, according to the same Britannica account, which gives the city a strong arts and education presence alongside its commercial history.

Because the state is small, Providence is never far from anywhere else in Rhode Island: the beaches of the south coast, the mansions of Newport, the mill towns of the Blackstone Valley, and the farmland of the western part of the state are all within a short drive. A Rhode Islander can live in one town, work in Providence, and spend a weekend on Block Island or in Newport without ever leaving the state, and many do.

Newport, on Aquidneck Island, grew first as a colonial port, then as a center of trade, and later, in the nineteenth century, as a resort town famous for its Gilded Age mansions. Britannica notes that Newport is a primary attraction, with its culture and its Gilded Age mansions, and that tourism is now one of the state’s leading economic activities. Block Island, about 10 miles south of the mainland according to Britannica, and the islands of Narragansett Bay, including Conanicut, Prudence, and Rhode islands, complete the picture. They explain why a drive around Rhode Island involves bridges and water in a way that a drive around a landlocked state does not. The state’s highest point is modest: Jerimoth Hill, near North Foster, at 812 feet (247 meters), according to Britannica, with much of the state’s western upland below 800 feet and its coastal lowland below 200 feet. Rhode Island is a low, coastal state, not a mountainous one.

Common confusions, answered directly

First, smallest by area is not the same as smallest by population. Rhode Island is the smallest state by area, but it is not the smallest state by population. That title belongs to Wyoming. In the 2020 Census, Wyoming had a population of 576,851, and Vermont had 643,077, both well below Rhode Island’s 1,097,379. Rhode Island, with more than one million residents, ranks 43rd of the 50 states by population, well above the bottom, and its density of about 1,061 people per square mile of land is among the highest in the country. A small, densely settled coastal state can easily have more people than a large, thinly settled western state. Wyoming, with a land area of about 97,089 square miles in 2020, has roughly 94 times Rhode Island’s land area and roughly half its population.

Second, Delaware is not the smallest state. Delaware is the second smallest state, on both total area and land area, and it is often confused with Rhode Island because both are small eastern states, both were among the original 13, and both are easy to overlook on a map. But the figures settle the question: Delaware’s total area of 2,489 square miles is about 944 square miles larger than Rhode Island’s total area, and Delaware’s land area of 1,949 square miles is about 915 square miles larger than Rhode Island’s land area. Delaware has its own distinction, which belongs in a separate article and is not repeated here in full: it was the first state to ratify the Constitution, and that is why it is nicknamed the First State. First to ratify is not the same as smallest, and the two titles belong to two different states.

Third, Rhode Island is not an island, and it is not part of New York, and it is not the same as Long Island. The name suggests an island, and Long Island, which belongs to New York, sits nearby in the sound. The facts are simple: most of Rhode Island’s land is on the mainland; the island that gave the state its name, Aquidneck Island, is only one part of its territory; and Long Island is in New York, not in Rhode Island. The state’s territory includes Block Island and the islands of Narragansett Bay, but the state itself is a mainland coastal state, bordered by Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the sea.

A fourth, smaller confusion concerns the figure itself. If a reader finds a source that says Rhode Island is 1,214 square miles, that source is using an older and narrower count of water, as explained above. The current Census Bureau total, 1,545 square miles, counts inland, coastal, and territorial water.

How this article relates to the rest of the states series

This article goes into depth on one state: the single smallest state, Rhode Island, its figures, its history in brief, its capital, and its confusions. It is not a list of all small states, and it is not a survey of the largest state. Readers who want the full ranking of small states should read the companion small states list article, AMB-207, which sets Rhode Island in its place among the ten smallest states. Readers who want the opposite end of the scale should read the companion biggest state article, AMB-210, which covers Alaska in the same depth that this article gives to Rhode Island. Readers who want the capitals and basic facts of all 50 states in one place should read the live Amberaisle states and capitals article, AMB-149. Each of those articles has its own job, and this article does not repeat their work.

FAQ

What is the smallest state in the USA?

Rhode Island is the smallest state in the USA by area. Its total area is 1,545 square miles (4,001 square kilometers), and its land area is about 1,034 square miles (2,678 square kilometers).

What is the smallest state in the United States by total area?

Rhode Island, at 1,545 square miles. Delaware is second, at 2,489 square miles, on the same Census Bureau total area measure.

How big is Rhode Island in square miles?

Total area, land plus water, is 1,545 square miles. Land area alone is about 1,034 square miles. Water area is 511 square miles, about one third of the total.

Why do some sources say Rhode Island is 1,545 square miles and others say 1,034 square miles?

Because the first figure is total area and the second is land area. Total area adds water to land. The difference, 511 square miles, is mostly Narragansett Bay and coastal and territorial water.

Why do some older sources say Rhode Island is 1,214 square miles?

Because older totals counted a narrower set of waters, mainly inland water, and left out most coastal and territorial water. The current Census Bureau total of 1,545 square miles counts inland, coastal, and territorial water. The ranking did not change.

Is Rhode Island the smallest state by land area too?

Yes. Rhode Island is the smallest state on land area as well as on total area. Delaware is second on both measures.

What is the capital of the smallest state?

Providence is the capital of Rhode Island, and it is also the state’s largest city. Providence was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, at the head of Narragansett Bay.

Is Delaware the smallest state?

No. Delaware is the second smallest state. Its total area of 2,489 square miles and its land area of 1,949 square miles are both larger than Rhode Island’s figures. Delaware’s distinction is different: it was the first state to ratify the Constitution.

Is Rhode Island the smallest state by population?

No. The smallest state by population in the 2020 Census was Wyoming, with 576,851 people, followed by Vermont, with 643,077 people. Rhode Island had 1,097,379 people in 2020.

How many times bigger is Alaska than Rhode Island?

On total area, Alaska, at 665,384 square miles, is about 431 times the size of Rhode Island, at 1,545 square miles. Britannica rounds this to about one four-hundredth. On land area, Alaska, at 570,641 square miles, is about 552 times Rhode Island’s land area of about 1,034 square miles.

How long and wide is Rhode Island?

Rhode Island is about 48 miles long and 37 miles wide, at its maximum dimensions, according to Britannica.

Is Rhode Island an island?

No. Most of Rhode Island’s land area is on the mainland. The name originally applied to Aquidneck Island in Narragansett Bay. The state’s territory also includes Block Island and islands in Narragansett Bay, but the state itself is a mainland coastal state.

What is Rhode Island’s nickname?

Rhode Island is nicknamed the Ocean State, because of its close connection to the sea and its several hundred miles of coastline. It is also affectionately called Little Rhody.

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?", opened October 24, 2026. Smallest state Rhode Island at 1,545 square miles (4,001 square kilometers); Alaska largest at 665,384 square miles; ten smallest states list with Delaware second at 2,489 square miles and Connecticut third at 5,543 square miles.
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Rhode Island", opened October 24, 2026. Smallest state, about 48 miles long and 37 miles wide; borders Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island Sound and Block Island Sound; more than 400 miles of coastline; capital Providence; total area 1,545 square miles; population 2020 1,097,379; admission May 29, 1790; Jerimoth Hill 812 feet; Block Island about 10 miles south of the mainland; Narragansett Bay running two thirds of the length of the state; Roger Williams founding Providence in 1636; name origin and Aquidneck Island; first colony to renounce allegiance in 1776; Slater's mill at Pawtucket in 1790; Providence sole capital in 1900; Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design in Providence; Newport Gilded Age mansions and tourism.
• U.S. Census Bureau, "State Area Measurements and Internal Point Coordinates", opened October 24, 2026. Derived from the MAF/TIGER database, boundaries as of January 1, 2010, for statistical purposes. Rhode Island total 1,545, land 1,034, water 511 square miles, split into inland 182, coastal 64, territorial 266 square miles; Delaware total 2,489, land 1,949; Connecticut total 5,543, land 4,842; Alaska total 665,384, land 570,641; Texas total 268,596 square miles.
• U.S. Census Bureau, QuickFacts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, opened October 24, 2026. Rhode Island land area 2020 1,033.89 square miles; population Census April 1, 2020, 1,097,379; population per square mile 2020 1,061.4.
• U.S. Census Bureau, QuickFacts, Wyoming, Vermont, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Florida, opened October 24, 2026. Population Census April 1, 2020: Wyoming 576,851, Vermont 643,077; Wyoming land area 2020 97,088.76 square miles.
• State of Rhode Island, RI.gov, Facts and Figures, opened October 24, 2026. Population 2020 1,097,379 per U.S. Census; land area 2020 1,033.89 square miles per U.S. Census; shoreline 384 miles per NOAA shoreline mileage; population per square mile 1,061.4; largest city and state capitol Providence.
• Tufts University, "A New Nation Votes", Rhode Island state history, opened October 24, 2026. Roger Williams founding Providence in 1636; Portsmouth settled 1638 by Anne and William Hutchinson and William Coddington; Newport founded by Coddington; patent secured in 1643; royal charter granted by Charles II in 1663 guaranteeing extensive religious toleration and providing government until 1843; ratification of the Constitution in 1790 after resistance.
• U.S. Census Bureau, Geography Program Glossary, area measurement entry, consulted via search result October 24, 2026. Area calculated from the specific boundary recorded in the geospatial database; water area figures include inland, coastal, Great Lakes, and territorial sea water.