Russia vs South Korea

Russia is 171 times larger than South Korea — 17,098,242 against 99,720 km². Russia is 2.8 times more populous than South Korea — 143,513,328 against 51,684,564 people.

Side by side

Population density

South Korea is 62 times more densely populated than Russia — 518 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 South Korean won.
• 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.

South Korea

About seventy percent mountain, so the population is packed into the valleys and coastal plains; the Seoul metropolitan area holds roughly half the country. Jeju Island is a shield volcano whose lava tube system is among the finest in the world. South Korea has the fastest average internet connections of any large country.

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.