Russia vs Saudi Arabia

Russia is 8.0 times larger than Saudi Arabia — 17,098,242 against 2,149,690 km². Russia is 3.9 times more populous than Saudi Arabia — 143,513,328 against 36,973,555 people.

Side by side

Population density

Saudi Arabia is 2.0 times more densely populated than Russia — 17 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 Russian ruble and the Saudi riyal.
• Russia spans 11 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.
• Different continents — Europe and Asia.

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.

Saudi Arabia

The Rub' al Khali, the Empty Quarter, is the largest continuous sand desert in the world at about 650,000 km² — bigger than France. Saudi Arabia has no permanent rivers or lakes at all, which is true of only a handful of countries. It holds roughly a sixth of the world's proven oil reserves.

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.