This paper presents the design of a compact circular microstrip patch antenna for WLAN applications which covers the band 5.15 to 5.825 GHz. The antenna is designed using 1.4mm thick FR-4 (lossy)substrate with relative permittivity 4.4 and a microstrip line feed is used. The radius of the circular patch is chosen as 7.62mm. To reduce the size and enhance the performance of the proposed antenna, a circular slot is loaded on circular patch and a square slot is etched on the ground plane of dimension 30mm×30mm. Design of the antenna is carried out using CST Microsoft Studio Sonimulation Software. The proposed antenna resonates at 5.5 GHz with a wider bandwidth of 702 MHz and it provides low return loss of -31.58 dB, good gain of 3.23 dB and directivity of 4.28 dBi and high efficiency of around 79% against the resonance frequency. The geometry of the proposed circular antenna with reduced size and its various performance parameters such as return loss, bandwidth, VSWR, gain, directivity, efficiency and radiation pattern plots are presented and discussed