grrr Vatican! I tried all of the stupid pacific islands first. Could have SWORN that Nauru was the smallest. Didn't even dawn on me to try Vatican City.
I think the word "settlement" here is problematic. What constitutes settlement? Ethiopia was home to the first humans... but as far as I know definitely not the first human settlement. Agriculture was invented and the first human settlements followed in the area known as Mesopotamia or "the Hilly Flanks"- modern day Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey
I agree it's not immediately obvious what it means. Wiki defines it as simply, "a community in which people live." I don't think agriculture would be a prerequisite for that. Surely modern day hunter-gatherer societies would still have things considered settlements by that definition.