An island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is part of Southern Europe. It lies 80 km (50 mi) south of Sicily (Italy), 284 km (176 mi) east of Tunisia, and 333 km (207 mi) north of Libya.

The official languages are Maltese and English, and 66% of the current Maltese population is at least conversational in the Italian language.

Malta has been inhabited since approximately 5900 BC. Its location in the center of the Mediterranean has historically given it great strategic importance as a naval base, with a succession of powers having contested and ruled the islands, including the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Normans, Aragonese, Knights of St. John, French, and British, amongst others.

With a population of about 516,000 over an area of 316 km2 (122 sq mi), Malta is the world's tenth-smallest country by area and fourth most densely populated sovereign country. Its capital is Valletta, which is the smallest national capital in the European Union by area and population.

According to the data from 2020 by Eurostat, the Functional Urban Area and metropolitan region covered the whole island and has a population of 480,134, and according to the United Nations, ESPON and EU Commission, "the whole territory of Malta constitutes a single urban region". Malta increasingly is referred to as a city-state, and also listed in rankings concerning cities or metropolitan areas.