Which country/territory/state...

[jamesontheroad]

...has the highest mileage of railways per capita of population?

 

[imagination]

Switzerland has 5063 km of national rail network and a population of slightly under 7.6m at its last census in 2007. That's probably one of the higher ones

 

[gordonthemoron]

Belgium?

 

[imagination]

Belgium is 3518 km 10.3m people (2001) according to wikipedia

 

[jamesontheroad]

Not the one I'm thinking of, which has 1km of railway for approx. every 70 people.

 

[imagination]

Hmm the vatican has 600 metres for 826 people...

But that's still 20 times more people per km of railway than your figure.

Is this an internationally recognised nation/state?

 

[jamesontheroad]

"country/territory/state"

 

[atomicdanny]

"country/territory/state"

The vatican is its own state its not actually a part of Italy (even though its in the middle of Rome!)

(well according to wiki! - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_City)

 

[IanPooleTrains]

China?

 

[jamesontheroad]

No luck then. It's Christmas Island, in the news for very sad reasons this week.

The dependent territory of Australia has 18km of (standard gauge) railway, connecting phosphate mines with the port. The population is currently around 1,400, although I can't establish whether or not that includes the Australian immigration detention centre on this island.

 

[imagination]

If you count asylum seekers its population is around 4200 though

 

[DaveNewcastle]

...has the highest mileage of railways per capita of population?

I wondered if Alaska might have been a good contender for this. (But I'll leave it to others to find the stats!)