China vs Malaysia

China is 29 times larger than Malaysia — 9,596,960 against 329,847 km². China is 39 times more populous than Malaysia — 1,406,585,000 against 35,977,838 people.

Side by side

Population density

China is 1.3 times more densely populated than Malaysia — 147 against 109 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, Malaysia on the left.
• Different currencies: the Chinese yuan and the Malaysian ringgit.

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.

Malaysia

Split between the Malay Peninsula and northern Borneo, separated by about 640 km of the South China Sea. Mount Kinabalu on Borneo is 4,095 m and still rising a few millimetres a year. The rainforest here is estimated at 130 million years old, among the oldest on Earth.

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.