---
title: "Australia vs New Zealand — area, population, currency"
description: "Australia is 7,741,220 km² with 27,614,411 people; New Zealand is 268,838 km² with 5,324,700. Area, density, currency, languages and time zones side by side."
url: https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/australia-vs-new-zealand/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Australia vs New Zealand

**Australia vs New Zealand: Australia is larger; Australia has more people**

7,741,220 km² vs 268,838 km² · 27,614,411 vs 5,324,700

Australia is 29 times larger than New Zealand — 7,741,220 against 268,838 km². Australia is 5.2 times more populous than New Zealand — 27,614,411 against 5,324,700 people.

## Side by side

|  | Australia | New Zealand |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Capital | Canberra | Wellington |
| Area | 7,741,220 km² | 268,838 km² |
| Population | 27,614,411 (2025) | 5,324,700 (2025) |
| Density | 3.6 /km² | 19.8 /km² |
| Currency | Australian dollar (AUD) | New Zealand dollar (NZD) |
| Official languages | English | English, Māori, New Zealand Sign Language |
| Time zones | UTC+08:00, UTC+08:45, UTC+09:30, UTC+10:00, UTC+10:30 | UTC+12:00, UTC+12:45 |
| Calling code | +61 | +64 |
| Drives on the | left | left |
| Continent | Oceania | Oceania |
| ISO codes | AU / AUS | NZ / NZL |

## Population density

New Zealand is 5.6 times more densely populated than Australia — 20 against 4 people per km². Density is where area and population interact, and it often reverses the impression the headline figures give — a large country with a small population can feel emptier than a small crowded one by an enormous margin.

## Practical differences

- Different currencies: the Australian dollar and the New Zealand dollar.
- Australia spans 5 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.

## Australia

The sixth-largest country in the world and the only one that covers an entire continent. The Great Barrier Reef runs about 2,300 km and is the largest structure made by living organisms on Earth, visible from orbit. Around eighty percent of its mammals, reptiles and flowering plants exist nowhere else. Melbourne and Sydney are within roughly a hundred thousand people of each other, and which counts as the largest city depends on where the boundary is drawn.

## New Zealand

Two main islands and around 600 smaller ones, roughly 1,600 km long. New Zealand broke away from Gondwana about 80 million years ago and had no land mammals except bats until people arrived, which is why so many of its birds are flightless. The Southern Alps run most of the South Island and reach 3,724 m at Aoraki / Mount Cook.

> Neutral facts only. Nothing here addresses politics, government, economics or which country is preferable in any respect — population is the one figure that dates, and it carries its year.

## Common questions

### Is Australia bigger than New Zealand?

Australia is larger — 7,741,220 km² against 268,838 km².

### Which has more people, Australia or New Zealand?

Australia, with 27,614,411 against 5,324,700.

### What is the time difference between Australia and New Zealand?

Australia is UTC+08:00, UTC+08:45, UTC+09:30, UTC+10:00, UTC+10:30 and New Zealand is UTC+12:00, UTC+12:45. Daylight saving shifts the gap during the year in places that observe it.

## Related pages

- [Australia](https://atoneplace.net/country/australia/)
- [New Zealand](https://atoneplace.net/country/new-zealand/)
- [India vs New Zealand](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/india-vs-new-zealand/)
- [China vs New Zealand](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/china-vs-new-zealand/)
- [Japan vs New Zealand](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/japan-vs-new-zealand/)
- [Canada vs New Zealand](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/canada-vs-new-zealand/)
- [Australia vs United States](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/australia-vs-united-states/)
- [Australia vs India](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/australia-vs-india/)
- [Australia vs China](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/australia-vs-china/)
- [Australia vs United Kingdom](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/australia-vs-united-kingdom/)
- [Australia vs Japan](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/australia-vs-japan/)
- [Australia vs Canada](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/australia-vs-canada/)
- [Australia vs France](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/australia-vs-france/)
- [Australia vs Germany](https://atoneplace.net/country-vs/australia-vs-germany/)

## Sources

- The World Factbook — Central Intelligence Agency (https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/) [Public domain (US Government)]
- World Bank Open Data — The World Bank (https://data.worldbank.org/) [CC BY 4.0]