12 country populations that surprise almost everyone

Most of us carry a rough map of the world in our heads, and it's usually wrong about one thing: how many people live where. We tend to judge a country's size by how big it looks on the map, or how often we hear about it, and neither is a good guide to its population.

Our geography game Population has the numbers for all 195 countries. These are some of the comparisons that catch people out.

A note on the numbers: populations change every year, so the figures below are rounded. We've only included comparisons where the gap is big enough that the conclusion holds even as the numbers move.

1. Bangladesh has more people than Russia

Russia is the largest country on Earth. Bangladesh is about the size of Greece or England plus Wales. Yet Bangladesh has roughly 175 million people against Russia's 146 million, packed into an area more than 100 times smaller.

2. Uganda has more people than Canada

Canada is the second-largest country in the world, at almost 10 million km². Uganda is about 1/40 of that. But Uganda has around 46 million people, while Canada has about 42 million.

3. Ethiopia has more people than Germany, France or the UK

Ethiopia has around 139 million people. That's well over one and a half times Germany (83 million), and close to Russia's total. It's the second most populous country in Africa, after Nigeria.

4. The whole Nordic region has about as many people as Australia

Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland together have about 28 million people, roughly the same as Australia. Bangladesh alone has more than six times as many.

5. Singapore has more people than Norway

Singapore has about 6.1 million people, more than Norway's 5.6 million. Norway has over 450 times as much land.

6. Iceland has fewer people than Malta

Iceland is famous enough that most people guess a few million. In fact it has fewer than 400,000 people, fewer than tiny Malta's roughly 520,000.

7. Egypt has over one and a half times as many people as the UK

Egypt has close to 108 million people. The UK has about 67 million and France about 69 million, so Egypt has around 40 million more people than either.

8. The Philippines and Vietnam both have more people than Germany

Two countries most Europeans think of as holiday destinations both have over 100 million people: the Philippines around 113 million and Vietnam around 102 million. Germany has 83 million.

9. Pakistan and Nigeria both have more people than Brazil

Brazil is the giant of South America, with about 213 million people. Pakistan and Nigeria both have over 240 million, which makes each of them more populous than Brazil.

10. Kenya has more people than Spain, and Tanzania about as many as France

Kenya has about 53 million people, more than Spain's 50 million. Tanzania, with around 67 million, is roughly level with France, and growing much faster.

11. Monaco is the most crowded country in the world

Monaco squeezes around 39,000 people into about 2 km². That's more than 19,000 people per square kilometre, the highest density of any country.

12. Mongolia is the emptiest

At the other end, Mongolia has about 3.6 million people spread over more than 1.5 million km², around two people per square kilometre. Australia, Namibia, Iceland and Canada follow close behind. Monaco is roughly 8,000 times as densely populated as Mongolia.

Why we get these wrong

Two things fool us. The first is the map: big countries look important, so we assume they're full of people, while small countries with huge populations, like Bangladesh, barely register. The second is the news: we hear a lot about some countries and very little about others, and we mistake familiarity for size.

The fastest way to fix your mental map is to guess and get it wrong a few times.

Test yourself

Population is a geography game built on exactly these numbers. Guess a country's population with a slider, and the closer you are, the more points you get. There are also flags, map pins, ranking countries by size, and routes across borders. Play live against friends with a room link, or try the daily set: the same eight questions for everyone in the world, every day.