Japan vs Portugal

Japan is 4.1 times larger than Portugal — 377,915 against 92,090 km². Japan is 11 times more populous than Portugal — 123,366,734 against 10,804,871 people.

Side by side

Population density

Japan is 2.8 times more densely populated than Portugal — 326 against 117 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, Portugal on the right.
• Different currencies: the Japanese yen and the Euro.
• Portugal spans 2 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.
• 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.

Portugal

Mainland Portugal plus the Azores and Madeira, which push its exclusive economic zone to one of the largest in Europe. Cabo da Roca is the westernmost point of mainland Europe. Portugal produces around half the world's cork, most of it from the montado oak landscapes of the Alentejo.

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.