Costa Rica vs United Kingdom

United Kingdom is 4.8 times larger than Costa Rica — 243,610 against 51,100 km². United Kingdom is 13 times more populous than Costa Rica — 69,487,000 against 5,152,950 people.

Side by side

Population density

United Kingdom is 2.8 times more densely populated than Costa Rica — 285 against 101 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 — Costa Rica on the right, United Kingdom on the left.
• Different currencies: the Costa Rican colón and the British pound.
• 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.

United Kingdom

Made up of Great Britain, the north-east of Ireland and around 6,000 smaller islands. No point in the UK is more than about 113 km from the sea. Ben Nevis, the highest point, is 1,345 m, which is modest — but the country has around 31,000 km of coastline once every inlet is counted.

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.