South Africa vs South Korea

South Africa is 12 times larger than South Korea — 1,219,090 against 99,720 km². South Africa is 1.3 times more populous than South Korea — 64,747,319 against 51,684,564 people.

Side by side

Population density

South Korea is 9.8 times more densely populated than South Africa — 518 against 53 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 — South Africa on the left, South Korea on the right.
• Different currencies: the South African rand and the South Korean won.
• Different continents — Africa and Asia.

South Africa

One of only a handful of countries with more than one capital, and the only one with three. The Vredefort Dome south-west of Johannesburg is the largest verified impact crater on Earth, about 300 km across and 2 billion years old. The Cape Floral Region packs roughly 9,000 plant species into a small corner of the country, most of them found nowhere else.

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.