Iran vs United States

United States is 6.0 times larger than Iran — 9,833,517 against 1,648,195 km². United States is 3.7 times more populous than Iran — 341,784,857 against 92,417,681 people.

Side by side

Population density

Iran is 1.6 times more densely populated than United States — 56 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

• Different currencies: the Iranian rial 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.

Iran

The Lut Desert has recorded the highest land surface temperatures ever measured from orbit, around 80 °C. Iran is largely a high plateau ringed by mountains — the Zagros and the Alborz, where Damavand reaches 5,610 m, the highest volcano in Asia. The qanat, an underground irrigation tunnel, has been used here for around 3,000 years.

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.