Japan vs Nepal

Japan is 2.6 times larger than Nepal — 377,915 against 147,181 km². Japan is 4.2 times more populous than Nepal — 123,366,734 against 29,618,118 people.

Side by side

Population density

Japan is 1.6 times more densely populated than Nepal — 326 against 201 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 Japanese yen and the Nepalese rupee.

Japan

A 2023 government survey using digital mapping counted 14,125 islands, more than double the long-quoted figure of 6,852. About three-quarters of the land is mountain, so nearly everyone lives on a narrow band of coastal plain. Japan sits where four tectonic plates meet and records a fifth of the world's magnitude-6-and-above earthquakes.

Nepal

Eight of the world's fourteen peaks above 8,000 m are here, including Everest at 8,849 m on the Chinese border. Elevation runs from 59 m in the southern plains to the top of the world in about 200 km. Nepal keeps its clock 5 hours 45 minutes ahead of UTC — the only country whose national standard time sits on a 45-minute offset.

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.