Italy vs Jamaica

Italy is 27 times larger than Jamaica — 301,340 against 10,991 km². Italy is 21 times more populous than Jamaica — 58,915,656 against 2,837,077 people.

Side by side

Population density

Jamaica is 1.3 times more densely populated than Italy — 258 against 196 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 — Italy on the right, Jamaica on the left.
• Different currencies: the Euro and the Jamaican dollar.
• Different continents — Europe and North America.

Italy

Italy has three of Europe's most active volcanoes — Etna, Stromboli and Vesuvius — and Stromboli has been erupting more or less continuously for at least 2,000 years. It has more UNESCO World Heritage sites than any other country. The Alps and Apennines mean about three-quarters of the land is mountain or hill.

Jamaica

The Blue Mountains rise to 2,256 m within about 15 km of the coast, so the island is far steeper than its size suggests. Cockpit Country in the west is a karst landscape of conical hills and sinkholes, largely trackless, and holds most of Jamaica's endemic plants. The island is about 235 km long and 82 km at its widest.

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.