The world is big, diverse and consists of different countries. Which countries stand out? What are the largest countries, which countries have the most inhabitants, which are the most densely populated countries, which countries have the greatest population growth and in which countries the population has the highest life expectancy? An overview of the most interesting top 10 lists with the subject ‘countries’ in this article.
Top 10 largest countries in the world
Our planet Earth has a total surface area of approximately 510,000,000 km², or 510 million square kilometers. By far the largest part of this is water, namely 71%. The land area therefore covers approximately 148 million square kilometers. Below is the top 10 of the largest countries in the world. As you can see, the largest country on the list (Russia) covers more than 10% of the entire land area of the entire planet. The entire top 10 covers almost half of the entire land area!
|
Country |
Area (km2) |
Percentage of Earth’s total land area |
|
Russia |
17,098,242 |
11.6 |
|
Canada |
9,984,670 |
6.8 |
|
United States |
9,629,091 |
6.5 |
|
China |
9,596,961 |
6.5 |
|
Brazil |
8,514,877 |
5.8 |
|
Australia |
7,692,024 |
5.2 |
|
India |
3,287,263 |
2.2 |
|
Argentina |
2,780,400 |
1.9 |
|
Kazakhstan |
2,724,900 |
1.8 |
|
Algeria |
2,381,741 |
1.6 |
By the way, there have been even larger countries (world empires) in the past. The two largest were the Mongol Empire and the British Empire. At their peak, both had an area of approximately 33 million square kilometers.
Top 10 countries with the most inhabitants
The human population is still growing rapidly. Every moment the number of people in the world rises to a new all-time record. But which are the countries with the most inhabitants? Below is an overview of the 10 countries with the most inhabitants.
|
Country |
Population |
|
China |
1,343,239,923 |
|
India |
1,205,073,612 |
|
United States |
313,847,465 |
|
Indonesia |
248,645,008 |
|
Brazil |
199,321,413 |
|
Pakistan |
190,291,129 |
|
Nigeria |
170,123,740 |
|
Bangladesh |
161,083,804 |
|
Russia |
142,517,670 |
|
Japan |
127,368,088 |
Top 10 most populous countries
The Netherlands is a densely populated country, at least that is the general opinion. With almost an average of 450 inhabitants per square kilometer, our country is indeed densely populated. Yet we only rank 23 in the world in terms of density. It could really be much busier. The 10 most populous countries in the world are shown below. By the way, Macau, Hong Kong, Gibraltar and Bermuda are not sovereign states, but belong to other countries.
|
Country |
Number of inhabitants per km2 |
|
Macau |
19,267 |
|
Monaco |
15,255 |
|
Singapore |
7,498 |
|
Hong-Kong |
6,480 |
|
Gibraltar |
4,839 |
|
Vatican CITY |
1,600 |
|
Bahrain |
1,647 |
|
Maldives |
1,314 |
|
Bermuda |
1,303 |
|
Malta |
1,297 |
Top 10 countries with largest population growth
As indicated earlier, the world population is still growing rapidly. But which are the countries where the population is growing the fastest in percentage terms? The growth may be due to a birth surplus or an immigration surplus. Below is an overview of the countries with the largest annual percentage population growth. What is striking is the large number of African countries in the list.
|
Country |
Population growth in % per year |
|
Qatar |
4.93 |
|
Zimbabwe |
4.36 |
|
Niger |
3.63 |
|
Uganda |
3.58 |
|
Ethiopia |
3.18 |
|
Turks and Caicos Islands |
3.17 |
|
Gaza Strip |
3.11 |
|
Burundi |
3.10 |
|
Burkina Faso |
3.07 |
|
United Arab Emirates |
3.06 |
Top 10 countries with highest life expectancy
The population in many countries is getting older. Below is an overview of the countries where average life expectancy is the highest. The average age is the average for men and women.
|
Country |
Average life expectancy in years |
|
Monaco |
89.68 |
|
Macau |
84.43 |
|
Japan |
83.91 |
|
Singapore |
83.75 |
|
San Marino |
83.07 |
|
Andorra |
82.50 |
|
Guernsey |
82.24 |
|
Hong-Kong |
82.12 |
|
Australia |
81.90 |
|
Italy |
81.86 |
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