Iceland vs Japan

Japan is 3.7 times larger than Iceland — 377,915 against 103,000 km². Japan is 314 times more populous than Iceland — 123,366,734 against 392,404 people.

Side by side

Population density

Japan is 86 times more densely populated than Iceland — 326 against 4 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 — Iceland on the right, Japan on the left.
• Different currencies: the Icelandic króna and the Japanese yen.
• Different continents — Europe and Asia.

Iceland

Iceland sits astride the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, so the North American and Eurasian plates pull apart across the country at about 2 cm a year. Roughly eleven percent of it is under glacier, Vatnajökull alone covering some 7,900 km². Almost all its electricity and heating come from hydro and geothermal sources.

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.