Indonesia vs South Africa

Indonesia is 1.6 times larger than South Africa — 1,904,569 against 1,219,090 km². Indonesia is 4.4 times more populous than South Africa — 285,721,236 against 64,747,319 people.

Side by side

Population density

Indonesia is 2.8 times more densely populated than South Africa — 150 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

• Different currencies: the Indonesian rupiah and the South African rand.
• Indonesia spans 3 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.
• Different continents — Asia and Africa.

Indonesia

The largest archipelago in the world: official surveys count more than 17,000 islands, of which around 6,000 are inhabited, spread over 5,100 km of ocean. Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire and has about 130 active volcanoes, more than any other country. It also holds more of the world's remaining tropical peatland than anywhere except the Congo basin.

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.