France vs Iceland

France is 6.3 times larger than Iceland — 643,801 against 103,000 km². France is 175 times more populous than Iceland — 68,720,337 against 392,404 people.

Side by side

Population density

France is 28 times more densely populated than Iceland — 107 against 4 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 Euro and the Icelandic króna.

France

Mont Blanc on the Italian border is 4,806 m, the highest point in western Europe. Counting its overseas departments, France spans twelve time zones — more than any other country — and its exclusive economic zone is the second largest in the world. The Gouffre Mirolda and other Alpine systems make it one of the great caving countries.

Iceland

Iceland sits astride the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, so the North American and Eurasian plates pull apart across the country at about 2 cm a year. Roughly eleven percent of it is under glacier, Vatnajökull alone covering some 7,900 km². Almost all its electricity and heating come from hydro and geothermal sources.

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.