Vatican is a very small independent city state
with a small population of around 1000 people.
It covers an area of only 100 acres to call
itself the smallest city state on the earth.
This city state came into existence long back in 1929 by Lateran Treaty.
Vatican is actually composed of two entities
which are Holy See and the Vatican City state.
And in general Vatican is not the sovereign country
rather its sovereignty is held by Holy See.
Situated in the heart of Rome, this smallest and beautiful
city state is a monarchical state that is ruled by the Pope.
This city carries a rich culture that has
world famous sculptures, paintings and more.
Some of the very popular sites of Vatican are Vatican
Museum, Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica.
It is true that Vatican, the independent city state
is said to be the rich of richest city in the world.
But the debate is how rich is this city and what is the actual wealth size?
This part is discussed below in more details.
How much wealth Vatican have?
Vatican’s wealth is so huge that is not actually possible to asses.
So, even though we have heard a lot about the vast wealth of this
city-state but it is really hard to come out with an exact figure.
Already mentioned that Vatican is composed of Vatican City state and Holy See.
And as per estimation by Forbes, Vatican’s wealth is nominal and measurable.
It counts to hundreds of millions actually considering
all the various funds and entity’s investment.
But it is in fact Holy See that maintains a huge amount of wealth acting
as the central point for the Catholic Church all across the world.
It is true that the economic condition and finances are slowly changing
but the Vatican City still continue to be the richest state in the world.
And it is never broken.
As per an estimation during 1965 by the Time Magazine,
the wealth of Vatican was tens Billions of Dollars.
Later in 2015, another estimate suggested that the Vatican Bank hold
an amount of $8 billions, so the overall wealth will be much higher.
This City state has much in store which is not really possible to asses.
For example, the Gold laden palatial church, the
excellent art work by Michelangelo and Raphael etc.
have a much higher value and also they will never be sold off actually.
Vatican City owns huge number of churches across the globe.
It also own numerous religious building that have several
historical precious treasures that serve 1.2 billion Catholics.
Coming to the Vatican Bank, it owns around $65
billion of assets on behalf of 17,400 customers.
This estimation is according to an article in IBT in 2014.
The Bank also owns $764 million equity.
And it has reserves gold worth $20 million with the US Federal Reserve.
However, the Vatican Bank news came to light several
times for several scandals over the past years.
It was accused for funding all those priest trapped in the sex
abuse case and also lending money to the fraud and criminals.
So, the above mentioned figure is actually an average and estimated amount.
The real net balance of the Bank is hard to calculate.
Now the question will rise on many mind that what is source of
income and revenue of this smallest of the smallest city state.
The first thing that made the Vatican City is a very rich city state
is the number of Catholic Church all over the world under them.
And then that very precious and valuable sculpture, art
work by renowned people like Michelangelo and Raphael.
And of course the Vatican Bank which hold huge amount of asset in various ways.
Anyways these are the fixed asset and are not able to asses.
The main source of income is donation.
Yes, the Catholics are big donor and they donate
a great part of their income to the churches.
Also there are corporate donors, government
grants and the churches own investment concept.
As per a study, the American Catholics make a donation of $10 in a week.
There are almost 85 million North American.
So, on an average the Catholic Church can earn almost $850 million in a week.
This is only the individual Catholics donation
while the corporate donation is not included here.
Other sources of income include stamp and the
memento sales, museum admission fee, etc.
Vatican issue their own euros, passport and the license,
print their own stamp and operates their own media outlet.
The only thing that lacks this rich City state is the taxation.
Here are some interesting facts about the Vatican City:
This is the smallest city state on the planet.
This state came into existence back in 1929 after the
war between Catholic Church and the Italian Government.
The church received a compensation of $92 million after the settlement.
Even though the church was ruled by the pope but they still used to live in Lateran
Palace across Rome and it was in 14th century when they started living in Vatican.
The population of Vatican is 1000.
But most of them around 600 people live in abroad.
Vatican have a telescope in Tucson, Arizona which is a research centre.
So, even though the size of this City is really very small,
it practices a rich culture and has a very rich economy.
Its size is compared with the central park of New York.
Vatican City has a size of 1/8th of the Central park of New York.
And it was once claimed that Vatican is broken up.
But, this is actually wrong and the economic situation
of the state is much better than we thought.
Its richness can’t be compared with anything.