Canada vs Japan

Canada is 26 times larger than Japan — 9,984,670 against 377,915 km². Japan is 3.0 times more populous than Canada — 123,366,734 against 41,651,653 people.

Side by side

Population density

Japan is 78 times more densely populated than Canada — 326 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

• They drive on opposite sides — Canada on the right, Japan on the left.
• Different currencies: the Canadian dollar and the Japanese yen.
• Canada spans 6 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.
• Different continents — North America and Asia.

Canada

The second-largest country in the world by total area, and the longest coastline of any — about 202,000 km, more than the rest of the world put together. Canada holds more lake area than every other country combined, and something over two million lakes. Its border with the United States is the longest between any two countries at 8,891 km.

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.