Size is weird. Honestly, when you look at a standard wall map in a classroom, you’re looking at a lie—or at least a very distorted version of the truth. Most of us grew up thinking Greenland is roughly the same size as Africa. It’s not. Not even close. Africa is actually fourteen times larger than Greenland. This happens because of something called the Mercator projection, which stretches landmasses near the poles to make a sphere fit onto a flat rectangle. If you want to understand the true order of country size, you have to strip away the visual bias of 16th-century navigation charts and look at the raw, hard numbers.
Russia is massive. That’s the starting point. It covers over 17 million square kilometers. To put that in perspective, Russia is larger than the surface area of Pluto. It spans eleven time zones. When someone in Vladivostok is sitting down for dinner, someone in Kaliningrad is just waking up and wondering where they put their coffee. It’s a staggering amount of land that dominates the top of the list, and it’s not going anywhere.
But as we move down the list, things get competitive. Canada takes the silver medal, but there’s a catch. A huge portion of Canada’s 9.98 million square kilometers is water. In fact, Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined. If you only counted dry land, the order of country size would look a lot different, and Canada might actually slip behind the United States or China.
The Battle for Third Place: China vs. The United States
This is where geographers start getting into heated arguments at bars. Who is actually bigger, China or the USA? It depends entirely on who you ask and how they measure.
If you look at total area—which includes land and inland water—the United States often edges out China. This is largely because the U.S. counts the coastal waters of the Great Lakes and various territorial seas. China, meanwhile, generally only counts its land area and inland lakes. According to the CIA World Factbook, the U.S. sits at 9.83 million square kilometers, while China is at 9.6 million. However, if you strip away the water and just look at dirt, China is arguably larger.
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Then you have the disputed territories. China’s official figures include regions like Taiwan and parts of the border with India (Aksai Chin), which many international bodies don't recognize as part of their sovereign land. It’s a geopolitical headache. For most practical purposes, they are neck-and-neck, but the U.S. usually gets the #3 spot in most Western textbooks, leaving China at #4.
Brazil and the Giant of the Southern Hemisphere
Brazil is huge. Like, "take a five-hour flight and you’re still in the same country" huge. It occupies nearly half of the entire South American continent. What’s wild is that Brazil is actually larger than the contiguous United States (the lower 48). It’s only when you add Alaska and Hawaii that the U.S. leaps ahead.
Brazil clocks in at 8.51 million square kilometers. Most of that is the Amazon Basin, a dense, humid wilderness that plays a massive role in the planet's climate. Because of its size, Brazil shares a border with every single country in South America except for Ecuador and Chile. Think about that for a second. It’s the undisputed heavyweight of the south.
Australia: The Continent That Is Also a Country
Australia is the only entity on this list that gets its own tectonic plate. It’s roughly 7.69 million square kilometers. People often underestimate Australia because it looks lonely at the bottom of the map, but it’s nearly the size of the United States.
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The weird thing about Australia’s size is how little of it is actually "used" by humans. About 80% of the population lives within 50 kilometers of the coast. The "Red Centre" is vast, arid, and largely empty of infrastructure. You could fit the entirety of the United Kingdom into Australia over 30 times. If you’re driving across the Nullarbor Plain, you’ll hit stretches of road that are perfectly straight for 146 kilometers. It’s a lot of space for not many people.
India and the "Small" Giants
India is the seventh-largest country, coming in at 3.28 million square kilometers. It feels much bigger because of the sheer density of its population, but in terms of physical footprint, it’s less than half the size of Australia.
After India, the order of country size drops into the 2-million-square-kilometer range:
- Argentina: The eighth largest, stretching from the tropical north to the icy tip of Patagonia.
- Kazakhstan: The world’s largest landlocked country. It’s mostly steppe and incredibly resource-rich.
- Algeria: The biggest country in Africa. After Sudan split into two in 2011, Algeria took the top spot on the continent.
Why Does Area Actually Matter?
It’s not just about bragging rights. Size dictates everything from resource management to defense. Large countries like Russia and Canada have the "luxury" of strategic depth—it’s very hard to conquer a country that just keeps going forever. But size is also a massive burden. Maintaining roads, electrical grids, and internet fiber across 10 million square kilometers is a logistical nightmare.
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Look at Kazakhstan. It has to manage a massive border with Russia and China while trying to connect isolated mining towns across thousands of miles of nothingness. Or the U.S., which spends billions just to keep its interstate highway system from crumbling. Small countries like Singapore or the Netherlands have their own problems, but "distance" isn't one of them. In a small country, everything is a two-hour drive away. In Russia, a two-hour drive barely gets you to the next gas station.
The Most Common Misconception: Africa
I mentioned this at the start, but it bears repeating because it’s the biggest "size" lie we’re told. Africa is not a country; it’s a continent. But even so, people treat it as smaller than it is. You can fit the United States, China, India, Japan, and most of Europe inside the borders of Africa, and you’d still have room left over.
When you look at the order of country size, remember that our visual tools are flawed. Maps are meant for navigation, not for comparing landmasses. If you really want to see the truth, look at a globe or use a "True Size" tool that accounts for the curvature of the earth.
Actionable Steps for Geopolitical Literacy
If you're interested in how geography shapes our world, don't just memorize a list. Use these steps to get a better handle on the reality of our planet's layout:
- Use a Gall-Peters Map: This projection preserves area rather than shape. It looks "stretched" and weird because we aren't used to it, but it gives you a much more honest look at how big Africa and South America really are compared to Europe and North America.
- Compare Land vs. Total Area: When looking at stats, check if the source includes "Exclusive Economic Zones" (maritime borders). This can inflate a country's perceived size by millions of kilometers.
- Explore Population Density vs. Size: Size is often a "hollow" stat. Look at the "Ecumene"—the inhabited portion of a country. Canada is huge, but its ecumene is a thin strip along the U.S. border. Understanding where people actually live tells a much more interesting story than just looking at a border on a map.
- Factor in Arable Land: Russia is the largest, but much of it is permafrost. The true "power" of a country's size is often linked to how much of that land can actually grow food.