France vs Vietnam

France is 1.9 times larger than Vietnam — 643,801 against 331,210 km². Vietnam is 1.5 times more populous than France — 101,598,527 against 68,720,337 people.

Side by side

Population density

Vietnam is 2.9 times more densely populated than France — 307 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

• Different currencies: the Euro and the Vietnamese đồng.
• 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.

Vietnam

Long and narrow: about 1,650 km from north to south and under 50 km wide at the waist. Hang Sơn Đoòng in Phong Nha is the largest known cave passage in the world, big enough to hold a New York block of 40-storey buildings, with its own river, jungle and clouds. Hạ Long Bay holds roughly 1,600 limestone karst islands.

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.