Iceland vs Russia

Russia is 166 times larger than Iceland — 17,098,242 against 103,000 km². Russia is 366 times more populous than Iceland — 143,513,328 against 392,404 people.

Side by side

Population density

Russia is 2.2 times more densely populated than Iceland — 8 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

• Different currencies: the Icelandic króna and the Russian ruble.
• Russia spans 11 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.

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.

Russia

The largest country in the world by land area, close to twice the size of the next one, and it spans eleven time zones. Lake Baikal in Siberia is the deepest lake on Earth at 1,642 m and holds roughly a fifth of the world's unfrozen fresh water — more than all five North American Great Lakes combined. Russia and China each border fourteen countries, more than any other state.

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.