Egypt vs Indonesia

Indonesia is 1.9 times larger than Egypt — 1,904,569 against 1,001,450 km². Indonesia is 2.4 times more populous than Egypt — 285,721,236 against 118,365,995 people.

Side by side

Population density

Indonesia is 1.3 times more densely populated than Egypt — 150 against 118 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 — Egypt on the right, Indonesia on the left.
• Different currencies: the Egyptian pound and the Indonesian rupiah.
• Indonesia spans 3 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.
• Different continents — Africa and Asia.

Egypt

Almost the entire population lives on the Nile valley and delta, which is only a few percent of the country's land area; the rest is desert. The Nile runs about 6,650 km from its headwaters to the Mediterranean. The Suez Canal, 193 km long, has no locks because the Mediterranean and Red Sea are close to the same level.

Indonesia

The largest archipelago in the world: official surveys count more than 17,000 islands, of which around 6,000 are inhabited, spread over 5,100 km of ocean. Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire and has about 130 active volcanoes, more than any other country. It also holds more of the world's remaining tropical peatland than anywhere except the Congo basin.

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.