Malaysia vs Russia

Russia is 52 times larger than Malaysia — 17,098,242 against 329,847 km². Russia is 4.0 times more populous than Malaysia — 143,513,328 against 35,977,838 people.

Side by side

Population density

Malaysia is 13 times more densely populated than Russia — 109 against 8 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 — Malaysia on the left, Russia on the right.
• Different currencies: the Malaysian ringgit and the Russian ruble.
• Russia spans 11 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.
• Different continents — Asia and Europe.

Malaysia

Split between the Malay Peninsula and northern Borneo, separated by about 640 km of the South China Sea. Mount Kinabalu on Borneo is 4,095 m and still rising a few millimetres a year. The rainforest here is estimated at 130 million years old, among the oldest on Earth.

Russia

The largest country in the world by land area, close to twice the size of the next one, and it spans eleven time zones. Lake Baikal in Siberia is the deepest lake on Earth at 1,642 m and holds roughly a fifth of the world's unfrozen fresh water — more than all five North American Great Lakes combined. Russia and China each border fourteen countries, more than any other state.

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.