Chile vs United Kingdom

Chile is 3.1 times larger than United Kingdom — 756,102 against 243,610 km². United Kingdom is 3.5 times more populous than Chile — 69,487,000 against 19,859,921 people.

Side by side

Population density

United Kingdom is 11 times more densely populated than Chile — 285 against 26 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 — Chile on the right, United Kingdom on the left.
• Different currencies: the Chilean peso and the British pound.
• Chile spans 3 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.
• Different continents — South America and Europe.

Chile

About 4,300 km from north to south and averaging only around 177 km wide — one of the most elongated countries on Earth. The Atacama in the north is the driest non-polar desert in the world, and some weather stations there have never recorded rain. That dryness and altitude is why most of the world's large optical telescopes are built here.

United Kingdom

Made up of Great Britain, the north-east of Ireland and around 6,000 smaller islands. No point in the UK is more than about 113 km from the sea. Ben Nevis, the highest point, is 1,345 m, which is modest — but the country has around 31,000 km of coastline once every inlet is counted.

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.