Finland vs Japan

Japan is 1.1 times larger than Finland — 377,915 against 338,145 km². Japan is 22 times more populous than Finland — 123,366,734 against 5,646,436 people.

Side by side

Population density

Japan is 20 times more densely populated than Finland — 326 against 17 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 — Finland on the right, Japan on the left.
• Different currencies: the Euro and the Japanese yen.
• Different continents — Europe and Asia.

Finland

Finland has roughly 188,000 lakes and 179,000 islands, more of each per unit area than any other country. About three-quarters of the land is forest, the highest proportion in Europe. A quarter of the country lies north of the Arctic Circle, where the sun stays up for weeks in summer and down for weeks in winter.

Japan

A 2023 government survey using digital mapping counted 14,125 islands, more than double the long-quoted figure of 6,852. About three-quarters of the land is mountain, so nearly everyone lives on a narrow band of coastal plain. Japan sits where four tectonic plates meet and records a fifth of the world's magnitude-6-and-above earthquakes.

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.