The largest places in our country map

Russia is the largest country feature in our Natural Earth boundary file, at about 16,879,675 km². This ranking measures the polygons used by this site; it is not a list of official land-area statistics or a list restricted to sovereign states.

Globe showing North America and surrounding ocean — A globe avoids the latitude-dependent area enlargement of familiar flat world maps.

Top 20 mapped places

We sorted the 241 country and territory features with positive calculated areas, excluding Antarctica. The figures come from the original Natural Earth 1:50m polygons, before the map outlines were simplified for display. Every row therefore uses the same dataset and method.

Boundary-derived estimates, not official land or total-area figures. Percentages compare each polygon with Russia’s polygon.
Rank	Country or territory feature	Approximate area	Russia = 100%	Equal-area map
1	Russia	16,879,675 km²	100.0%	View
2	Canada	9,872,085 km²	58.5%	View
3	United States of America	9,439,416 km²	55.9%	View
4	People's Republic of China	9,371,215 km²	55.5%	View
5	Brazil	8,499,361 km²	50.4%	View
6	Australia	7,705,990 km²	45.7%	View
7	India	3,155,830 km²	18.7%	View
8	Argentina	2,782,678 km²	16.5%	View
9	Kazakhstan	2,712,778 km²	16.1%	View
10	Democratic Republic of the Congo	2,334,626 km²	13.8%	View
11	Algeria	2,322,755 km²	13.8%	View
12	Greenland	2,154,808 km²	12.8%	View
13	Mexico	1,962,277 km²	11.6%	View
14	Saudi Arabia	1,925,841 km²	11.4%	View
15	Indonesia	1,872,160 km²	11.1%	View
16	Sudan	1,863,052 km²	11.0%	View
17	Libya	1,626,511 km²	9.6%	View
18	Iran	1,622,819 km²	9.6%	View
19	Mongolia	1,560,411 km²	9.2%	View
20	Peru	1,296,283 km²	7.7%	View

Where ranks are close

The United States and China differ by only 68,201 km² in this file, or 0.72% of the larger polygon. The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Algeria differ by 11,871 km², or 0.51%. Both are far closer than Russia and Canada. These are calculations from this file, not a claim that another source must put the places in the same order.

Area rankings can change when a source includes inland water, uses a different coastline or draws a disputed border differently. That matters most around a near tie. A comparison is reproducible only when it says which area definition, year and boundary source it uses. Our area guide shows the distinction with Brazil and a published surface-area series.

Why this is not a sovereignty list

Natural Earth maps Greenland separately, so it appears in this ranking even though it is not a sovereign state. Some other territories are separate features too. Antarctica is omitted because this page compares the country and territory features used by the main atlas; adding it would answer a different question. The full area index lists every mapped feature, including those below the top 20.

For the visual side, switch the linked map scenes to Mercator and back to Equal Earth. Russia and Canada occupy high latitudes, while Brazil and Australia sit much closer to the equator. Mercator exaggerates the first pair more strongly; it does not change the ranking’s area numbers. See our calculated latitude guide for the local scale factors. The boundary source is Natural Earth 1:50m Admin 0 Countries.