Russia vs Vietnam

Russia is 52 times larger than Vietnam — 17,098,242 against 331,210 km². Russia is 1.4 times more populous than Vietnam — 143,513,328 against 101,598,527 people.

Side by side

Population density

Vietnam is 37 times more densely populated than Russia — 307 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 Vietnamese đồng.
• 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.

Vietnam

Long and narrow: about 1,650 km from north to south and under 50 km wide at the waist. Hang Sơn Đoòng in Phong Nha is the largest known cave passage in the world, big enough to hold a New York block of 40-storey buildings, with its own river, jungle and clouds. Hạ Long Bay holds roughly 1,600 limestone karst islands.

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.