New Zealand vs Venezuela

Venezuela is 3.4 times larger than New Zealand — 912,050 against 268,838 km². Venezuela is 5.4 times more populous than New Zealand — 28,516,896 against 5,324,700 people.

Side by side

Population density

Venezuela is 1.6 times more densely populated than New Zealand — 31 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, Venezuela on the right.
• Different currencies: the New Zealand dollar and the Venezuelan bolívar soberano.
• 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.

Venezuela

Angel Falls drops 979 m from the top of Auyán-tepui, the highest uninterrupted waterfall in the world — so high that in the dry season much of the water turns to mist before it lands. The tepuis are flat-topped sandstone table mountains, each an island of species cut off for millions of years. Lake Maracaibo sees more lightning than anywhere else on Earth, around 250 strikes per km² 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.