You’d think a simple question about geography would have a simple answer. But honestly, if you ask "what is the fourth largest country in the world," you’re going to get two different answers depending on who you talk to and which map is hanging on their wall.
Geography is messy. It isn’t just about dirt and rocks; it’s about how we count water, how we handle disputes, and whether we’re looking at "total area" or just "land area." Most of the time, the title for the fourth spot belongs to the United States, while China sits at number three. But here’s the kicker: if you strip away the lakes and the coastal waters, China actually has more land.
The Big Four: A Quick Reality Check
Before we get into the weeds of the US-China debate, let’s look at the undisputed heavyweights. Russia is the absolute king of the hill, spanning over 17 million square kilometers. It’s so big it makes everyone else look tiny. Then you’ve got Canada at number two.
After that, the math starts to get weird.
The United States and China are basically neck-and-neck. Most official sources, like the CIA World Factbook and Britannica, usually rank them like this:
- Russia (17,098,242 sq km)
- Canada (9,984,670 sq km)
- United States (9,833,517 sq km)
- China (9,596,960 sq km)
Wait. You probably noticed something. I just called the United States the third largest. So why is everyone searching for the fourth? Because for decades, China was widely considered the third largest, and the US was fourth.
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Why the Rankings Keep Flipping
The reason the United States often jumps to number three—pushing China to the fourth largest country in the world—comes down to how the US government calculates its own size.
Back in the day, the US only counted its land and inland water (like the Great Lakes). Then, in the 1990s, they started adding in coastal and territorial waters. Suddenly, the US "grew" by hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. China doesn't usually include its territorial waters in its "total area" the same way, which is why they often lose the number three spot in American-led datasets.
The Land Area Argument
If you’re a purist who thinks "country size" should only mean the stuff you can actually walk on, the rankings flip entirely.
When you look at land area only:
- China has roughly 9.3 million sq km of land.
- The United States has about 9.1 million sq km of land.
In this scenario, China is comfortably the second-largest country by land (only behind Russia), and the US drops further down. Canada, despite being number two in total area, is actually fourth in land area because a massive chunk of it is just frozen lakes and rivers.
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The China Factor: Disputed Borders
You can’t talk about China’s size without mentioning the borders. It’s a geopolitical headache. China claims several territories that it doesn't fully control, or that other countries also claim.
Take Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh. These are regions along the border with India. If you include every single territory China claims, its total area swells significantly. Then there’s Taiwan. Most international databases treat Taiwan as a separate entity for geographic statistics, but Beijing obviously views that very differently.
If China were to "reunite" with every territory it claims, it would definitively be larger than the United States, water or no water.
Geography is More Than Just a Number
Knowing what is the fourth largest country in the world is a cool trivia fact, but it also explains a lot about how these nations function. The US is huge, but it's also spread out. You've got the massive wilderness of Alaska, which accounts for about 17% of the entire country's landmass.
China, on the other hand, is much more compact but incredibly varied. You’ve got the Himalayan mountains in the west, the Gobi desert in the north, and subtropical jungles in the south. The sheer variety of biomes in the fourth-largest country—whichever one you pick—is what makes them global superpowers.
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What This Means for Your Next Trip
If you're planning to visit either the US or China, the scale is hard to wrap your head around. You can’t "see" either of these countries in a week. Or a month.
- In the US: Driving from New York to Los Angeles takes about 45 hours of pure driving time. That’s roughly 2,800 miles.
- In China: The high-speed rail network is the best way to handle the distance. The trip from Beijing to Hong Kong is about 1,200 miles, but you can do it in less than nine hours on a train.
Actionable Insights for the Curious
If you're trying to settle a bet or just want to be the smartest person in the room, keep these nuances in mind:
- Check the source: If it's a US-based source, the US is likely #3 and China is #4. If it's an international or Chinese source, it's often the other way around.
- Look for "Land Area" vs "Total Area": This is the single biggest factor in the ranking. Total area includes water; land area doesn't.
- Don't forget the territories: Remember that the US includes places like Puerto Rico and Guam in some measurements, while China’s size is often debated based on its borders with India and its claims in the South China Sea.
Ultimately, the "fourth largest" title is a moving target. It’s a reminder that even something as permanent as a continent is subject to the way humans draw lines and fill out spreadsheets.
To get a true sense of the scale of the world's fourth-largest country, your best bet is to look at a satellite map rather than a ranked list. Seeing the vastness of the American Great Plains or the sprawling Tibetan Plateau tells you way more than a number ever could. Grab a globe, find the 40th parallel, and just trace how far these borders actually go. It’s pretty wild when you realize just how much empty space exists in the world's biggest nations.