New Zealand vs Philippines

Philippines is 1.1 times larger than New Zealand — 300,000 against 268,838 km². Philippines is 22 times more populous than New Zealand — 116,786,962 against 5,324,700 people.

Side by side

Population density

Philippines is 20 times more densely populated than New Zealand — 389 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, Philippines on the right.
• Different currencies: the New Zealand dollar and the Philippine peso.
• New Zealand spans 2 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.
• Different continents — Oceania and Asia.

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.

Philippines

An archipelago of 7,641 islands, of which about 2,000 are inhabited. The Philippine Trench off the east coast reaches 10,540 m, one of the deepest points in any ocean. The country sits in the most typhoon-exposed part of the planet and takes around twenty named storms a year.

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.