Nigeria vs South Africa

South Africa is 1.3 times larger than Nigeria — 1,219,090 against 923,768 km². Nigeria is 3.7 times more populous than South Africa — 237,527,782 against 64,747,319 people.

Side by side

Population density

Nigeria is 4.8 times more densely populated than South Africa — 257 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 — Nigeria on the right, South Africa on the left.
• Different currencies: the Nigerian naira and the South African rand.

Nigeria

The most populous country in Africa, with roughly one African in six. The Niger Delta is the largest river delta in Africa at about 70,000 km², a maze of creeks and mangrove covering an area the size of Ireland.

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.