Colombia vs Russia

Russia is 15 times larger than Colombia — 17,098,242 against 1,138,910 km². Russia is 2.7 times more populous than Colombia — 143,513,328 against 53,425,635 people.

Side by side

Population density

Colombia is 5.6 times more densely populated than Russia — 47 against 8 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 Colombian peso and the Russian ruble.
• Russia spans 11 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.
• Different continents — South America and Europe.

Colombia

The only South American country with coastline on both the Pacific and the Caribbean. It has more bird species than any other country, around 1,900, and more orchid species too. The Andes split into three separate ranges here, and the Chocó on the Pacific side is among the wettest places on Earth, with over 10 m of rain a year in places.

Russia

The largest country in the world by land area, close to twice the size of the next one, and it spans eleven time zones. Lake Baikal in Siberia is the deepest lake on Earth at 1,642 m and holds roughly a fifth of the world's unfrozen fresh water — more than all five North American Great Lakes combined. Russia and China each border fourteen countries, more than any other state.

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.