Panama vs Russia

Russia is 227 times larger than Panama — 17,098,242 against 75,420 km². Russia is 31 times more populous than Panama — 143,513,328 against 4,571,189 people.

Side by side

Population density

Panama is 7.2 times more densely populated than Russia — 61 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

• Different currencies: the Panamanian balboa and the Russian ruble.
• Russia spans 11 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.
• Different continents — North America and Europe.

Panama

The canal is 82 km long and lifts ships 26 m up to Gatún Lake and back down, using gravity-fed fresh water rather than pumps. Because the isthmus curves, a ship going from the Atlantic to the Pacific travels roughly south-east. The Darién Gap is the only break in the 30,000 km Pan-American Highway.

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.