Italy vs Malaysia

Malaysia is slightly larger, by 9.5% — 329,847 against 301,340 km². Italy is 1.6 times more populous than Malaysia — 58,915,656 against 35,977,838 people.

Side by side

Population density

Italy is 1.8 times more densely populated than Malaysia — 196 against 109 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, Malaysia on the left.
• Different currencies: the Euro and the Malaysian ringgit.
• Different continents — Europe and Asia.

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.

Malaysia

Split between the Malay Peninsula and northern Borneo, separated by about 640 km of the South China Sea. Mount Kinabalu on Borneo is 4,095 m and still rising a few millimetres a year. The rainforest here is estimated at 130 million years old, among the oldest on Earth.

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.