Vatican City (Wikipedia) Vatican City (/ˈvætɪkən/), officially the Vatican City State (Italian: Stato della Città del Vaticano; Latin: Status Civitatis Vaticanae), is a landlocked independent country, city-state, microstate, and enclave within Rome, Italy. It became independent from Italy in 1929 with the Lateran Treaty, and it is a distinct territory under “full ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdiction” of the Holy See, itself a sovereign entity under international law, which maintains the city-state’s temporal power and governance, diplomatic, and spiritual independence.