Russia vs Sweden

Russia is 38 times larger than Sweden — 17,098,242 against 450,295 km². Russia is 14 times more populous than Sweden — 143,513,328 against 10,596,620 people.

Side by side

Population density

Sweden is 2.8 times more densely populated than Russia — 24 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 Swedish krona.
• Russia spans 11 time zones, so "local time" there is not a single answer.

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.

Sweden

Sweden has roughly 267,000 islands, more than any other country, though only a small fraction are inhabited. Around seventy percent of it is forest, and a seventh lies above the Arctic Circle. Its right of public access lets anyone walk and camp on most uncultivated land.

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.