France vs South Africa

South Africa is 1.9 times larger than France — 1,219,090 against 643,801 km². France is slightly more populous, by 6.1% — 68,720,337 against 64,747,319 people.

Side by side

Population density

France is 2.0 times more densely populated than South Africa — 107 against 53 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, South Africa on the left.
• Different currencies: the Euro and the South African rand.
• Different continents — Europe and Africa.

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.

South Africa

One of only a handful of countries with more than one capital, and the only one with three. The Vredefort Dome south-west of Johannesburg is the largest verified impact crater on Earth, about 300 km across and 2 billion years old. The Cape Floral Region packs roughly 9,000 plant species into a small corner of the country, most of them found nowhere else.

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.