China vs South Africa

China is 7.9 times larger than South Africa — 9,596,960 against 1,219,090 km². China is 22 times more populous than South Africa — 1,406,585,000 against 64,747,319 people.

Side by side

Population density

China is 2.8 times more densely populated than South Africa — 147 against 53 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, South Africa on the left.
• Different currencies: the Chinese yuan and the South African rand.
• 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.

South Africa

One of only a handful of countries with more than one capital, and the only one with three. The Vredefort Dome south-west of Johannesburg is the largest verified impact crater on Earth, about 300 km across and 2 billion years old. The Cape Floral Region packs roughly 9,000 plant species into a small corner of the country, most of them found nowhere else.

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.