Malaysia vs United Kingdom

Malaysia is 1.4 times larger than United Kingdom — 329,847 against 243,610 km². United Kingdom is 1.9 times more populous than Malaysia — 69,487,000 against 35,977,838 people.

Side by side

Population density

United Kingdom is 2.6 times more densely populated than Malaysia — 285 against 109 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

• Different currencies: the Malaysian ringgit and the British pound.
• 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.

United Kingdom

Made up of Great Britain, the north-east of Ireland and around 6,000 smaller islands. No point in the UK is more than about 113 km from the sea. Ben Nevis, the highest point, is 1,345 m, which is modest — but the country has around 31,000 km of coastline once every inlet is counted.

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.