<p>A very compact microstrip antenna is presented for wireless communications by integrating multiple miniaturization techniques as the shorted wall, irregular patch, and metasurface structure, forming a new shorted metasurface-loaded irregular patch antenna (SMI-PA). Starting from a conventional antenna, the SMI-PA is regarded as the ultimate design by progressively adding the three miniaturization techniques. Full-wave simulations reveal that in regard of small antenna size, the SMI-PA coordinating all these three techniques is superior to the other antennas using less methods. The patch size for the SMI-PA with all the three techniques is 0.13λ₀ × 0.17λ₀, which is smaller than the antenna with two techniques as of 0.14λ₀ × 0.19λ₀. In addition, the antenna using only one compacting technique is found with the patch size of 0.15λ₀ × 0.20λ₀, while the conventional antenna with none techniques is of 0.30λ₀ × 0.40λ₀. The smallest SMI-PA is demonstrated in experiments on a substrate with <i>ε</i>_<i>r</i> = 2.2. Good agreements are observed between the simulated and experimental results. The peak gain is 2.88dBi. The SMI-PA in this work is promising to be used in the future wireless communications.</p>