China vs Ethiopia

China is 8.7 times larger than Ethiopia — 9,596,960 against 1,104,300 km². China is 10 times more populous than Ethiopia — 1,406,585,000 against 135,472,051 people.

Side by side

Population density

China is 1.2 times more densely populated than Ethiopia — 147 against 123 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 Ethiopian birr.
• Different continents — Asia and Africa.

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.

Ethiopia

Ethiopia has the highest mean elevation of any country in Africa, with more land above 3,000 m than the rest of the continent combined. The Blue Nile leaves Lake Tana here and supplies most of the Nile's flow during the flood season. The country keeps its own calendar of thirteen months, running seven to eight years behind the Gregorian one.

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.