China vs Costa Rica

China is 188 times larger than Costa Rica — 9,596,960 against 51,100 km². China is 273 times more populous than Costa Rica — 1,406,585,000 against 5,152,950 people.

Side by side

Population density

China is 1.5 times more densely populated than Costa Rica — 147 against 101 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 Chinese yuan and the Costa Rican colón.
• Different continents — Asia and North America.

China

The largest country in the world using a single time zone, so the sun rises in the far west around three hours later by the clock than in Beijing. China has a land border with fourteen countries — more than any other state except Russia, which also has fourteen. Its terrain runs from Mount Everest on the Nepalese border to the Turpan Depression at 154 m below sea level.

Costa Rica

Costa Rica covers about 0.03 percent of the Earth's surface but holds roughly five percent of its known species. More than a quarter of the country is protected, forest cover has roughly doubled since the 1980s, and it runs on close to 100 percent renewable electricity most years. It has around sixty volcanoes, six of them active.

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.