Japan vs Vatican City

Japan is 858898 times larger than Vatican City — 377,915 against 0 km². Japan is 123367 times more populous than Vatican City — 123,366,734 against 1,000 people.

Side by side

Population density

Vatican City is 7.0 times more densely populated than Japan — 2,273 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, Vatican City 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.

Vatican City

The smallest country in the world by both area and population: about 0.44 km², or roughly an eighth the size of New York's Central Park, with fewer than a thousand residents. Its border with Rome is about 3.4 km long. St Peter's Basilica covers around 15,000 m² and is one of the largest churches ever built.

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.