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Mexico vs United States

Mexico vs United States
United States is larger; United States has more people
1,964,375 km² vs 9,833,517 km² · 131,946,900 vs 341,784,857

United States is 5.0 times larger than Mexico — 9,833,517 against 1,964,375 km². United States is 2.6 times more populous than Mexico — 341,784,857 against 131,946,900 people.

Side by side

Mexico United States
Capital Mexico City Washington, D.C.
Area 1,964,375 km² 9,833,517 km²
Population 131,946,900 (2025) 341,784,857 (2025)
Density 67.2 /km² 34.8 /km²
Currency Mexican peso (MXN) United States dollar (USD)
Official languages Spanish English
Time zones UTC-08:00, UTC-07:00, UTC-06:00, UTC-05:00 UTC-10:00, UTC-09:00, UTC-08:00, UTC-07:00, UTC-06:00, UTC-05:00
Calling code +52 +1
Drives on the right right
Continent North America North America
ISO codes MX / MEX US / USA

Population density

Mexico is 1.9 times more densely populated than United States — 67 against 35 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 Mexican peso and the United States dollar.
  • United States spans 6 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.

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.

United States

Third or fourth largest country in the world depending on how China's area is counted. It spans six standard time zones across the fifty states, from UTC-10 in Hawaii to UTC-5 on the east coast. Death Valley holds the highest reliably recorded air temperature on Earth, 56.7 °C in 1913, and is 86 m below sea level; Denali, 5,500 km away in Alaska, is 6,190 m.

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.

Common questions

Is Mexico bigger than United States?
United States is larger — 9,833,517 km² against 1,964,375 km².
Which has more people, Mexico or United States?
United States, with 341,784,857 against 131,946,900.
What is the time difference between Mexico and United States?
Mexico is UTC-08:00, UTC-07:00, UTC-06:00, UTC-05:00 and United States is UTC-10:00, UTC-09:00, UTC-08:00, UTC-07:00, UTC-06:00, UTC-05:00. Daylight saving shifts the gap during the year in places that observe it.

Related pages

Sources

  1. The World Factbook — Central Intelligence Agency (Public domain (US Government))
  2. World Bank Open Data — The World Bank (CC BY 4.0)

How these figures are compiled and checked