Ireland vs Russia

Russia is 243 times larger than Ireland — 17,098,242 against 70,273 km². Russia is 26 times more populous than Ireland — 143,513,328 against 5,484,367 people.

Side by side

Population density

Ireland is 9.3 times more densely populated than Russia — 78 against 8 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 — Ireland on the left, Russia on the right.
• Different currencies: the Euro and the Russian ruble.
• Russia spans 11 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.

Ireland

The interior is a low limestone plain ringed by coastal mountains, which is why the rivers drain inward and the middle of the country is bog. The Cliffs of Moher run 14 km and reach 214 m. Ireland has no native snakes, and only one native reptile.

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.