Liechtenstein

Liechtenstein is one of those countries that people forget exists until someone mentions it in a pub quiz. Wedged between Switzerland and Austria in the Rhine Valley, it is the sixth smallest country on Earth, doubly landlocked (meaning all its neighbors are also landlocked), and home to roughly 39,000 people. It has no airport, no train station of its own, and the entire country is about 25 kilometers long.

And yet it works extraordinarily well. Liechtenstein has the highest GDP per capita of any country on the planet by some measures, zero national debt, more registered companies than citizens, and an unemployment rate that occasionally dips below 2%. The prince lives in an actual castle on a hill above the capital, and unlike most European monarchs, he has real political power. The country industrialized by making false teeth and sausage casings, graduated to precision instruments and ceramics, and now runs primarily on finance and manufacturing. It is prosperous, clean, staggeringly beautiful, and so quiet that the national football team plays in a stadium that seats 6,000.