Brazil vs Indonesia

Brazil is 4.5 times larger than Indonesia — 8,515,770 against 1,904,569 km². Indonesia is 1.3 times more populous than Brazil — 285,721,236 against 212,812,405 people.

Side by side

Population density

Indonesia is 6.0 times more densely populated than Brazil — 150 against 25 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 — Brazil on the right, Indonesia on the left.
• Different currencies: the Brazilian real and the Indonesian rupiah.
• Brazil spans 4 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.
• Different continents — South America and Asia.

Brazil

The fifth-largest country in the world and the largest in the southern hemisphere. It holds about sixty percent of the Amazon rainforest, and the Amazon River discharges roughly a fifth of all the fresh water that reaches the world's oceans — more than the next seven rivers combined. Brazil borders every South American country except Chile and Ecuador.

Indonesia

The largest archipelago in the world: official surveys count more than 17,000 islands, of which around 6,000 are inhabited, spread over 5,100 km of ocean. Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire and has about 130 active volcanoes, more than any other country. It also holds more of the world's remaining tropical peatland than anywhere except the Congo basin.

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.