Italy vs Venezuela

Venezuela is 3.0 times larger than Italy — 912,050 against 301,340 km². Italy is 2.1 times more populous than Venezuela — 58,915,656 against 28,516,896 people.

Side by side

Population density

Italy is 6.3 times more densely populated than Venezuela — 196 against 31 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 Venezuelan bolívar soberano.
• Different continents — Europe and South 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.

Venezuela

Angel Falls drops 979 m from the top of Auyán-tepui, the highest uninterrupted waterfall in the world — so high that in the dry season much of the water turns to mist before it lands. The tepuis are flat-topped sandstone table mountains, each an island of species cut off for millions of years. Lake Maracaibo sees more lightning than anywhere else on Earth, around 250 strikes per km² a year.

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.