Hong Kong vs Japan

Japan is 341 times larger than Hong Kong — 377,915 against 1,108 km². Japan is 16 times more populous than Hong Kong — 123,366,734 against 7,498,900 people.

Side by side

Population density

Hong Kong is 21 times more densely populated than Japan — 6,768 against 326 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 Hong Kong dollar and the Japanese yen.

Hong Kong

One of the most densely populated places on Earth, yet roughly three-quarters of its land is undeveloped countryside and about forty percent is protected country park. It has 263 islands and around 730 km of coastline. There are more skyscrapers over 150 m here than in any other city.

Japan

A 2023 government survey using digital mapping counted 14,125 islands, more than double the long-quoted figure of 6,852. About three-quarters of the land is mountain, so nearly everyone lives on a narrow band of coastal plain. Japan sits where four tectonic plates meet and records a fifth of the world's magnitude-6-and-above earthquakes.

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.