Indonesia vs South Korea

Indonesia is 19 times larger than South Korea — 1,904,569 against 99,720 km². Indonesia is 5.5 times more populous than South Korea — 285,721,236 against 51,684,564 people.

Side by side

Population density

South Korea is 3.5 times more densely populated than Indonesia — 518 against 150 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 — Indonesia on the left, South Korea on the right.
• Different currencies: the Indonesian rupiah and the South Korean won.
• Indonesia spans 3 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.

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 Korea

About seventy percent mountain, so the population is packed into the valleys and coastal plains; the Seoul metropolitan area holds roughly half the country. Jeju Island is a shield volcano whose lava tube system is among the finest in the world. South Korea has the fastest average internet connections of any large country.

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.