Mexico vs New Zealand

Mexico is 7.3 times larger than New Zealand — 1,964,375 against 268,838 km². Mexico is 25 times more populous than New Zealand — 131,946,900 against 5,324,700 people.

Side by side

Population density

Mexico is 3.4 times more densely populated than New Zealand — 67 against 20 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 — Mexico on the right, New Zealand on the left.
• Different currencies: the Mexican peso and the New Zealand dollar.
• Mexico spans 4 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.
• Different continents — North America and Oceania.

Mexico

Mexico has the fourth-highest count of vertebrate and plant species of any country, and more reptile species than anywhere else. Chicxulub, under the northern Yucatán, is the roughly 180 km crater left by the asteroid impact 66 million years ago. The Sistema Sac Actun beneath the same peninsula is the longest known underwater cave system in the world, over 370 km surveyed.

New Zealand

Two main islands and around 600 smaller ones, roughly 1,600 km long. New Zealand broke away from Gondwana about 80 million years ago and had no land mammals except bats until people arrived, which is why so many of its birds are flightless. The Southern Alps run most of the South Island and reach 3,724 m at Aoraki / Mount Cook.

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.