Japan vs Netherlands

Japan is 9.1 times larger than Netherlands — 377,915 against 41,543 km². Japan is 6.8 times more populous than Netherlands — 123,366,734 against 18,087,633 people.

Side by side

Population density

Netherlands is 1.3 times more densely populated than Japan — 435 against 326 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

• They drive on opposite sides — Japan on the left, Netherlands on the right.
• Different currencies: the Japanese yen and the Euro.
• Different continents — Asia and Europe.

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.

Netherlands

About a quarter of the Netherlands lies below sea level and roughly a fifth of its present land area has been reclaimed from sea, lake and marsh. Flevoland, a province of some 1,400 km², was drained from the Zuiderzee in the 20th century and is the largest artificial island in the world. The lowest point, in Zuidplaspolder, is about 6.8 m below sea level.

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.