Netherlands vs South Africa

South Africa is 29 times larger than Netherlands — 1,219,090 against 41,543 km². South Africa is 3.6 times more populous than Netherlands — 64,747,319 against 18,087,633 people.

Side by side

Population density

Netherlands is 8.2 times more densely populated than South Africa — 435 against 53 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 — Netherlands on the right, South Africa on the left.
• Different currencies: the Euro and the South African rand.
• Different continents — Europe and Africa.

Netherlands

About a quarter of the Netherlands lies below sea level and roughly a fifth of its present land area has been reclaimed from sea, lake and marsh. Flevoland, a province of some 1,400 km², was drained from the Zuiderzee in the 20th century and is the largest artificial island in the world. The lowest point, in Zuidplaspolder, is about 6.8 m below sea level.

South Africa

One of only a handful of countries with more than one capital, and the only one with three. The Vredefort Dome south-west of Johannesburg is the largest verified impact crater on Earth, about 300 km across and 2 billion years old. The Cape Floral Region packs roughly 9,000 plant species into a small corner of the country, most of them found nowhere else.

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.