Indonesia vs United States

United States is 5.2 times larger than Indonesia — 9,833,517 against 1,904,569 km². United States is 1.2 times more populous than Indonesia — 341,784,857 against 285,721,236 people.

Side by side

Population density

Indonesia is 4.3 times more densely populated than United States — 150 against 35 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, United States on the right.
• Different currencies: the Indonesian rupiah and the United States dollar.
• United States spans 6 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.
• Different continents — Asia and North America.

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.

United States

Third or fourth largest country in the world depending on how China's area is counted. It spans six standard time zones across the fifty states, from UTC-10 in Hawaii to UTC-5 on the east coast. Death Valley holds the highest reliably recorded air temperature on Earth, 56.7 °C in 1913, and is 86 m below sea level; Denali, 5,500 km away in Alaska, is 6,190 m.

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.