Italy vs Poland

Poland is slightly larger, by 3.8% — 312,685 against 301,340 km². Italy is 1.6 times more populous than Poland — 58,915,656 against 36,435,861 people.

Side by side

Population density

Italy is 1.7 times more densely populated than Poland — 196 against 117 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 Euro and the Polish złoty.

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.

Poland

The Wieliczka salt mine near Kraków has been worked since the 13th century and holds chapels, chandeliers and statues carved entirely from rock salt, about 300 m down. Białowieża on the Belarusian border is the last large fragment of the primeval forest that once covered the European plain.

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.