Italy vs Ukraine

Ukraine is 2.0 times larger than Italy — 603,550 against 301,340 km². Italy is 1.5 times more populous than Ukraine — 58,915,656 against 38,980,376 people.

Side by side

Population density

Italy is 3.0 times more densely populated than Ukraine — 196 against 65 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 Ukrainian hryvnia.

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.

Ukraine

The largest country entirely within Europe. About a quarter of the world's chernozem — the deep black soil that makes grain farming so productive — lies here. The Carpathians in the west reach 2,061 m, and the rest of the country is largely steppe drained by the Dnieper.

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.