Italy vs Portugal

Italy is 3.3 times larger than Portugal — 301,340 against 92,090 km². Italy is 5.5 times more populous than Portugal — 58,915,656 against 10,804,871 people.

Side by side

Population density

Italy is 1.7 times more densely populated than Portugal — 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

• Portugal spans 2 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.

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.

Portugal

Mainland Portugal plus the Azores and Madeira, which push its exclusive economic zone to one of the largest in Europe. Cabo da Roca is the westernmost point of mainland Europe. Portugal produces around half the world's cork, most of it from the montado oak landscapes of the Alentejo.

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.