Japan vs United Arab Emirates

Japan is 4.5 times larger than United Arab Emirates — 377,915 against 83,600 km². Japan is 11 times more populous than United Arab Emirates — 123,366,734 against 11,513,149 people.

Side by side

Population density

Japan is 2.4 times more densely populated than United Arab Emirates — 326 against 138 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, United Arab Emirates on the right.
• Different currencies: the Japanese yen and the United Arab Emirates dirham.

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.

United Arab Emirates

The Burj Khalifa in Dubai is 828 m, the tallest building in the world, and has been since 2010. Most of the country is desert; the Liwa Oasis on the edge of the Empty Quarter carries dunes over 250 m high. Jebel Jais in the Hajar mountains reaches 1,934 m and sees occasional snow.

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.