Ethiopia vs Italy

Ethiopia is 3.7 times larger than Italy — 1,104,300 against 301,340 km². Ethiopia is 2.3 times more populous than Italy — 135,472,051 against 58,915,656 people.

Side by side

Population density

Italy is 1.6 times more densely populated than Ethiopia — 196 against 123 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 Ethiopian birr and the Euro.
• Different continents — Africa and Europe.

Ethiopia

Ethiopia has the highest mean elevation of any country in Africa, with more land above 3,000 m than the rest of the continent combined. The Blue Nile leaves Lake Tana here and supplies most of the Nile's flow during the flood season. The country keeps its own calendar of thirteen months, running seven to eight years behind the Gregorian one.

Italy

Italy has three of Europe's most active volcanoes — Etna, Stromboli and Vesuvius — and Stromboli has been erupting more or less continuously for at least 2,000 years. It has more UNESCO World Heritage sites than any other country. The Alps and Apennines mean about three-quarters of the land is mountain or hill.

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.