China vs India

China is 2.9 times larger than India — 9,596,960 against 3,287,263 km². India is slightly more populous, by 4.1% — 1,463,865,525 against 1,406,585,000 people.

Side by side

Population density

India is 3.0 times more densely populated than China — 445 against 147 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 — China on the right, India on the left.
• Different currencies: the Chinese yuan and the Indian rupee.

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.

India

The most populous country in the world since 2023. The Ganges-Brahmaputra system drains the southern Himalaya into the largest delta on Earth, and Mawsynram and Cherrapunji in Meghalaya are the wettest inhabited places on record, with roughly 11 m of rain a year. Mumbai is the largest individual municipality; the Delhi urban agglomeration, which contains the capital, is larger still at around 33 million.

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.