Ethiopia vs Russia

Russia is 15 times larger than Ethiopia — 17,098,242 against 1,104,300 km². Russia is slightly more populous, by 5.9% — 143,513,328 against 135,472,051 people.

Side by side

Population density

Ethiopia is 15 times more densely populated than Russia — 123 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 Ethiopian birr and the Russian ruble.
• Russia spans 11 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.
• 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.

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.