Belgium vs Japan

Japan is 12 times larger than Belgium — 377,915 against 30,528 km². Japan is 10 times more populous than Belgium — 123,366,734 against 11,941,781 people.

Side by side

Population density

Belgium is 1.2 times more densely populated than Japan — 391 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

• They drive on opposite sides — Belgium on the right, Japan on the left.
• Different currencies: the Euro and the Japanese yen.
• Different continents — Europe and Asia.

Belgium

One of the most densely populated countries in Europe, and one of the most brightly lit — its motorway lighting was long visible from orbit as a distinct grid. The Signal de Botrange, its highest point, is only 694 m. Antwerp handles the majority of the world's rough diamond trade.

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.