New Zealand vs Russia

Russia is 64 times larger than New Zealand — 17,098,242 against 268,838 km². Russia is 27 times more populous than New Zealand — 143,513,328 against 5,324,700 people.

Side by side

Population density

New Zealand is 2.4 times more densely populated than Russia — 20 against 8 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, Russia on the right.
• Different currencies: the New Zealand dollar and the Russian ruble.
• Russia spans 11 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.
• Different continents — Oceania and Europe.

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.

Russia

The largest country in the world by land area, close to twice the size of the next one, and it spans eleven time zones. Lake Baikal in Siberia is the deepest lake on Earth at 1,642 m and holds roughly a fifth of the world's unfrozen fresh water — more than all five North American Great Lakes combined. Russia and China each border fourteen countries, more than any other state.

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.