France vs Portugal

France is 7.0 times larger than Portugal — 643,801 against 92,090 km². France is 6.4 times more populous than Portugal — 68,720,337 against 10,804,871 people.

Side by side

Population density

Portugal is slightly more densely populated, by 9.9% — 117 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

• Portugal spans 2 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.

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.

Portugal

Mainland Portugal plus the Azores and Madeira, which push its exclusive economic zone to one of the largest in Europe. Cabo da Roca is the westernmost point of mainland Europe. Portugal produces around half the world's cork, most of it from the montado oak landscapes of the Alentejo.

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.