Area Converter
Area Converter — How Big Is It, Really?
Type any area — or pick a country — and see it through familiar places: “≈ 2.3 × Beijing”, “43% of Central Park”. Kilometres, miles and honest analogies, computed from open data.
Any positive number — decimals are fine.
Fills the input with the country's computed surface area.
10,000 km² (3,861 mi²) ≈ 1.6× Shanghai
Closest matches
≈ 1.6× Shanghai
6,340 km² · 2,448 mi²
City
61% of Beijing
16,410 km² · 6,336 mi²
City
≈ 1.7× Bali
5,780 km² · 2,232 mi²
Island
48% of Wales
20,779 km² · 8,023 mi²
Region / country
33% of Belgium
30,528 km² · 11,787 mi²
Region / country
29% of Hainan Island
33,900 km² · 13,089 mi²
Island
| Reference | Reference area | Your area, compared |
|---|---|---|
| ShanghaiCity | 6,340 km² · 2,448 mi² | 1.6× |
| BeijingCity | 16,410 km² · 6,336 mi² | 61% |
| BaliIsland | 5,780 km² · 2,232 mi² | 1.7× |
| WalesRegion / country | 20,779 km² · 8,023 mi² | 48% |
| BelgiumRegion / country | 30,528 km² · 11,787 mi² | 33% |
| Hainan IslandIsland | 33,900 km² · 13,089 mi² | 29% |
| LuxembourgRegion / country | 2,586 km² · 998 mi² | 3.9× |
| SwitzerlandRegion / country | 41,285 km² · 15,940 mi² | 24% |
| the NetherlandsRegion / country | 41,543 km² · 16,040 mi² | 24% |
| TokyoCity | 2,194 km² · 847 mi² | 4.6× |
| LondonCity | 1,572 km² · 607 mi² | 6.4× |
| South KoreaRegion / country | 100,210 km² · 38,691 mi² | 10% |
| New York CityCity | 778 km² · 300 mi² | 13× |
| ParisCity | 105 km² · 40.5 mi² | 95× |
| Central ParkLandmark | 3.4 km² · 1.3 mi² | 2933× |
| MonacoLandmark | 2 km² · 0.78 mi² | 4950× |
| Vatican CityLandmark | 0.49 km² · 0.19 mi² | 20408× |
| a football pitchLandmark | 0.007 km² · 0.003 mi² | 1400560× |
How this tool works
- Type an area and pick its unit (km² or mi²) — or pick a country and its surface area fills in automatically.
- Read the analogy cards: the six most feel-able comparisons from the reference library (“≈ 1.6 × Shanghai”, “43% of Central Park”), then the full reference table with every comparison at a glance.
- Share the exact result by copying the URL — the area, unit or country is encoded in the query string.
The state lives in the URL (?area=10000&unit=km2 (or ?country=france)),
so any conversion can be shared, bookmarked, or indexed directly.
Data & method
The analogy library currently holds 18 references across four categories — cities, landmarks, islands and regions — each with a documented measurement basis.
Conversion: km² and mi² are converted with the exact international factor (1 mile = 1,609.344 m, so 1 mi² = 2.589988 km²) — no rounded shortcuts. Country areas come from the same equal-area computation every GlobeVS tool uses (spherical areas of Natural Earth 1:110m boundaries, public domain), not a hand-copied table. The analogy library is a curated set of 18 well-known references — cities, landmarks, islands and regions — with each area's basis (city-proper vs municipality, land vs total) documented in the source; figures are accepted approximations, good to a few percent. Ranking: references are ordered by |log(ratio)|, so the closest matches surface first and a 4× oversize reads exactly as near as a 4× undersize. Percentages below 1% render as “<1%” instead of a false zero.
The numbers above are rendered at build time for the default input (10,000 km²: ≈ 1.6× Shanghai) — they are complete without JavaScript; the interactive input is an enhancement.
Embed this tool
Add the area converter to your own site: paste the snippet below into your HTML and it loads the same interactive tool inside an iframe, with a small non-removable “Powered by” attribution link back to this page. The embed is available in English.
<iframe src="https://globevs.com/embed/area-converter" width="800" height="600" title="Area Converter — GlobeVS" loading="lazy" style="border:0;max-width:100%" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups"></iframe>FAQ
How does the km² to mi² conversion work?
Exactly, not approximately: the international mile is defined as 1,609.344 metres, so one square mile is exactly 2.589988110336 km². Type a value in either unit — 10,000 km² is 3,861.02 mi² — and both readings update together. Country areas are computed from Natural Earth 1:110m boundaries with an equal-area spherical formula, the same basis as every other GlobeVS tool.
What do the analogy cards mean?
Each card compares your area with a well-known reference. When your area is larger you get a multiple (“≈ 1.6× Shanghai” means your area is about 1.6 times Shanghai's); when it is smaller you get a share (“43% of Central Park” means it would cover about 43% of the park). The closest matches surface first: references are ranked by |log(ratio)|, the measure that treats “twice as big” and “half the size” as equally near.
How accurate are the reference areas?
They are widely accepted approximations, each documented with its exact basis in the tool's source: Beijing counts the full municipality (16,410 km²) while Paris counts only the city inside the Périphérique (105 km²); New York City counts land area only. Administrative boundaries differ from mental maps — a city's metro region is far larger than its municipal area — so treat every card as an honest order-of-magnitude anchor, not a survey.
Why does my percentage show as “<1%”?
Below about half a percent, a rounded percentage would render as “0%” — a false zero (your area would still cover a real slice of, say, Vatican City). The tool writes “<1%” instead, and the table beside the cards always shows the exact underlying ratio figure.
Where does a country's area come from when I pick one?
From the same open geometry the true-size map draws: Natural Earth 1:110m boundaries (public domain), measured with an equal-area spherical formula (Chamberlin–Duquette). That figure can differ slightly from a national statistics office's land-area number — different boundary detail and a different measurement basis — but it is consistent across every GlobeVS tool, so the analogies you see here match what you see on the map. On the default input, 10,000 km² is 1.6× the size of Shanghai.
Related
Drag countries around a world map to compare their true sizes →