France vs Malaysia

France is 2.0 times larger than Malaysia — 643,801 against 329,847 km². France is 1.9 times more populous than Malaysia — 68,720,337 against 35,977,838 people.

Side by side

Population density

Malaysia is slightly more densely populated, by 2.2% — 109 against 107 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 — France on the right, Malaysia on the left.
• Different currencies: the Euro and the Malaysian ringgit.
• Different continents — Europe and Asia.

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.

Malaysia

Split between the Malay Peninsula and northern Borneo, separated by about 640 km of the South China Sea. Mount Kinabalu on Borneo is 4,095 m and still rising a few millimetres a year. The rainforest here is estimated at 130 million years old, among the oldest on Earth.

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.