Bangladesh vs Japan

Japan is 2.5 times larger than Bangladesh — 377,915 against 148,460 km². Bangladesh is 1.4 times more populous than Japan — 175,686,899 against 123,366,734 people.

Side by side

Population density

Bangladesh is 3.6 times more densely populated than Japan — 1,183 against 326 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 Bangladeshi taka and the Japanese yen.

Bangladesh

One of the most densely populated countries on Earth, with over 1,100 people per km² — roughly the population of Russia in an area the size of Wisconsin. Most of it is the delta of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna, the largest river delta in the world, and much of the land is under two metres above sea level. The Sundarbans mangrove forest on the coast is the largest of its kind.

Japan

A 2023 government survey using digital mapping counted 14,125 islands, more than double the long-quoted figure of 6,852. About three-quarters of the land is mountain, so nearly everyone lives on a narrow band of coastal plain. Japan sits where four tectonic plates meet and records a fifth of the world's magnitude-6-and-above earthquakes.

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.