Figuring out which countries in Europe are the size of U.S. states has been very interesting, but this is the last one – I swear. In the previous two installments, we got to see that you can fit Italy inside New Mexico, the U.K. inside Wyoming, Portugal and Maine are almost exactly the same size, and I can’t write about Andorra without making Star Trek references. Now, on the part three…

Austria vs. South Carolina

Ah, Austria, where Arnold Schwarzenegger came from (but not Vienna Sausages – they’re German). South Carolina, where… um… Stephen Colbert came from. No, wait, that’s his wife. I couldn’t think of anyone else from South Carolina. Darius Rucker! There we go. I should have thought of him first because I saw him giving a free concert on the street in Myrtle Beach years ago.

Austria
Area: 32,386 miles² (83,879 km²)
Dimensions: 173 miles (280km) N-S and 372 miles (600 km) E-W
Population: 8.9 million

South Carolina
Area: 32,020 miles² (83,932 km²)
Dimensions: 260 miles (420 km) N-S and 200 miles (320 km) E-W
Population: 5.1 million

Belarus vs. Kansas

Belarus is nearly the size of Kansas, but with triple the population. About one in five Belarusians live in the capital city of Minsk. The name ‘Belarus’ means ‘white Rus’ and is referred to as ‘White Russia’. This isn’t a racial thing, the color white is associated with ‘west’ in that part of the world – as in ‘west of Russia’ There are several other theories, but I’m going with that one. Kansas is where the band come from, go figure.

Belarus
Area: 80,153 miles² (207,595 km²)
Dimensions: 350 miles (560 km) N-S and 400 miles (650 km) E-W
Population: 9.4 million

Kansas
Area: 82,278 miles² (213,000 km²)
Dimensions: 213 miles (343 km) N-S and 410 miles (660 km) E-W
Population: 2.9 million

Belgium vs. Maryland

Belgium and Maryland are almost exactly the same size. Belgium gave us fancy waffles and Jean Claude Van Damme. There is a lot of important stuff in Maryland, partially thanks to its proximity to Washington D.C. In fact, not only do the Baltimore Ravens have their stadium in Maryland, but the Washington Football Team does as well. They’ll be announcing their new name in a few weeks, it only took them years to figure one out.

Belgium
Area: 11,849 miles² (30,689 km²)
Dimensions: 174 miles (280 km) NW-SE and  138 miles (222 km) NE-SW
Population: 11.5 million

Maryland
Area: 12,407 miles² (32,133 km²)
Dimensions: 119 miles (192 km) N-S and 196 miles (315 km) E-W
Population: 6.2 million

Iceland vs. Kentucky

Iceland doesn’t look that big on this map because of perspective in relation to continental Europe, but it’s only 1000 square miles smaller than Kentucky. Iceland really isn’t covered in ice. If you want to be literal, Iceland and Greenland should swap names. Kentucky is home to the most famous horse race, Fort Knox, and tons of bourbon distilleries.

Iceland
Area: 39,682 miles² (102,775 km²)
Dimensions: 194 miles (312 km) N-S and 304 miles (490 km) E-W
Population: .37 million (371,580)

Kentucky
Area: 40,408 miles² (104,656 km²)
Dimensions: 187 miles (302 km) N-S and 397 miles (640 km) E-W
Population: 4.5 million

Spain vs. New York and Pennsylvania

My dad called as I was writing this and asked “what about Spain?”. Well… Spain is huge – and I already covered California and Texas in earlier articles of this series. I hadn’t had the chance to feature my home state, and it turns out that Spain is slightly smaller than Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Virginia and Vermont combined. If you look at the NY/PA border and go to about the middle, that’s approximately where I am sitting right now. I know, according to the map, it looks like there is no way Spain is that large. It is, trust me, I ran the numbers more than once to make sure. Spain also has a whole bunch of territories across that globe that are taken into consideration. Think of it this way, Spain is almost as large as France, and France is almost as large as Texas. Texas is much larger than PA, OH, NY, VA, and VT.

Spain

Area: 195,360 miles² (505,990 km²)

Population: 47.5 million

PA, NY, OH, and VT

Area: 197,893 miles² (512,541 km²) combined

Population: 53.1 million

Lessons Learned

Spain is a lot larger than I thought

Spain also has a whole lot more people than I thought, especially considering the example included cities like New York, Philadelphia, Columbus, and Baltimore.

Columbus, OH has almost twice the population of Baltimore, MD… what?

Belarus reminds me of a tasty vodka beverage

After doing three of these articles, many European countries are indeed geographically similar to U.S. states