Can Belgium be Measured Accurately?

Well, maybe not. It seems to depend on who you ask. And whether you measure only the land, or include water also. And when you make the measurement.

Source	Area in km2
http://www.belgium.be	32,545
http://www.expat-today.com	30,513
http://www.madeinbelgium.be/7_about_be_central.htm	30,528
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/be.html	Total: 30,528 sq km Land: 30,278 sq km Water: 250 sq km Comparative: About the size of Maryland

For the non-metric readers, 30,528 km2 = 11787 square miles.

And Belgium is still growing! Accoring to the belgium.be site, 2,000m2 were granted by the Netherlands to Belgium on 29 May 2000 (a piece of land in Zelzate along the Ghent-Terneuzen canal). If anyone knows more about this please let me know.

Rankings

According to the CIA rankings, these are the other countries of a similar size to Belgium. Source: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2023.html

Rank	Country	Area in km2
146	Taiwan	35,980
147	Moldova	33,843
148	Belgium	30,528
149	Lesotho	30,355
150	Armenia	29,800
151	Albania	28,748