Costa Rica vs Russia

Russia is 335 times larger than Costa Rica — 17,098,242 against 51,100 km². Russia is 28 times more populous than Costa Rica — 143,513,328 against 5,152,950 people.

Side by side

Population density

Costa Rica is 12 times more densely populated than Russia — 101 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 Costa Rican colón and the Russian ruble.
• Russia spans 11 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.
• Different continents — North America and Europe.

Costa Rica

Costa Rica covers about 0.03 percent of the Earth's surface but holds roughly five percent of its known species. More than a quarter of the country is protected, forest cover has roughly doubled since the 1980s, and it runs on close to 100 percent renewable electricity most years. It has around sixty volcanoes, six of them active.

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.