Russia vs United Kingdom

Russia is 70 times larger than United Kingdom — 17,098,242 against 243,610 km². Russia is 2.1 times more populous than United Kingdom — 143,513,328 against 69,487,000 people.

Side by side

Population density

United Kingdom is 34 times more densely populated than Russia — 285 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

• They drive on opposite sides — Russia on the right, United Kingdom on the left.
• Different currencies: the Russian ruble and the British pound.
• 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.

United Kingdom

Made up of Great Britain, the north-east of Ireland and around 6,000 smaller islands. No point in the UK is more than about 113 km from the sea. Ben Nevis, the highest point, is 1,345 m, which is modest — but the country has around 31,000 km of coastline once every inlet is counted.

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.