New Zealand vs Peru

Peru is 4.8 times larger than New Zealand — 1,285,216 against 268,838 km². Peru is 6.5 times more populous than New Zealand — 34,576,665 against 5,324,700 people.

Side by side

Population density

Peru is 1.4 times more densely populated than New Zealand — 27 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 — New Zealand on the left, Peru on the right.
• Different currencies: the New Zealand dollar and the Peruvian sol.
• New Zealand spans 2 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.
• Different continents — Oceania and South America.

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.

Peru

Peru holds the source of the Amazon and about sixty percent of its territory is Amazon basin, but most people live on the dry Pacific coast. Cotahuasi and Colca are among the deepest canyons in the world, both over 3,000 m. The Nazca lines, drawn on the coastal desert between about 500 BC and AD 500, cover some 450 km² and are only legible from the air or the surrounding hills.

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.