Austria vs France

France is 7.7 times larger than Austria — 643,801 against 83,871 km². France is 7.5 times more populous than Austria — 68,720,337 against 9,208,163 people.

Side by side

Population density

Austria is slightly more densely populated, by 2.9% — 110 against 107 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.

Austria

The Alps cover roughly sixty percent of the country and around forty percent of it is forest. The Eisriesenwelt near Werfen is the largest ice cave in the world, with about 42 km of passage. Grossglockner reaches 3,798 m.

France

Mont Blanc on the Italian border is 4,806 m, the highest point in western Europe. Counting its overseas departments, France spans twelve time zones — more than any other country — and its exclusive economic zone is the second largest in the world. The Gouffre Mirolda and other Alpine systems make it one of the great caving countries.

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.