Italy vs Vietnam

Vietnam is slightly larger, by 9.9% — 331,210 against 301,340 km². Vietnam is 1.7 times more populous than Italy — 101,598,527 against 58,915,656 people.

Side by side

Population density

Vietnam is 1.6 times more densely populated than Italy — 307 against 196 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 Vietnamese đồng.
• 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.

Vietnam

Long and narrow: about 1,650 km from north to south and under 50 km wide at the waist. Hang Sơn Đoòng in Phong Nha is the largest known cave passage in the world, big enough to hold a New York block of 40-storey buildings, with its own river, jungle and clouds. Hạ Long Bay holds roughly 1,600 limestone karst islands.

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.