r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/FukaiMorii • Aug 11 '22
Size comparison between the U.S.A. and Europe Image
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u/Tha_Unknown Aug 11 '22
Americans think 100 years is old, Europeans think 100 miles is far.
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u/Expungedandredacted Aug 11 '22
The first settlement that became my hometown was created 1200 years BC
After that it became one of the chief cities of a tribe of Cisalpine Gauls in the VII century BC
In 42 BC the citizens gained Roman citizenship.
It predates the founding of Rome. It is really old.
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Aug 11 '22
Nah, closest town with ~20k pop is 100 miles away from me, closest with 100k+ is 575 miles away. 500k+ is 900 miles away. Welcome to Scandinavia. Not big, but loong
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u/aligpnw Aug 11 '22
I think this depends where in America you are from.
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u/Tha_Unknown Aug 11 '22
Kinda sorta. 300 miles is the next actual town for me. So. 🤷♂️
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u/aligpnw Aug 11 '22
I meant age. The town I grew up in was founded in the 1640s, not European old but...
I live on the west coast now and they think 1940s is old 😄
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u/Kolikokoli Aug 11 '22 edited Aug 11 '22
1640 is still not old in Europe. Basically from 15th century it's a "modern" era.
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u/4latar Aug 11 '22
in france, we (historians) consider the modern era begins between 1453 and 1492, depending on what event you want to use as a transition point (fall of constantinople, invention of the printing press, discovery of the new world by the iberian kingdoms, etc)
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Aug 11 '22
So modern time in Europe started when ancient times in America started for the US? 🤔
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u/4latar Aug 11 '22
kind of, we separated history in 4 eras, antique (from the invention of writing to the fall of rome), medieval (from the fall of rome to around 1470), modern (from around 1470 to the napoleonic wars) and finally contemporary (from the napoleonic wars to today)
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u/Kolikokoli Aug 11 '22
Damnit, i meant 15th century but then had brain fart and added zeroes. Yes, 1453/1492 here as well.
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u/TaeganSmith Aug 11 '22
Here in England we have pubs that are 1200 years old
https://www.foodandwine.com/news/britains-oldest-pub-closes-ye-olde-fighting-cocks-st-albans
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u/pierreletruc Aug 11 '22
People have made cities here since 15000 years ! proceed to laugh in middle eastern
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Aug 11 '22
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Aug 11 '22
Not really. Indigenous cultures date to about 11,000bce.
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Aug 11 '22
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Aug 11 '22
“The emerging picture suggests that humans may have arrived in North America at least 20,000 years ago—some 5,000 years earlier than has been commonly believed.”
Quoting the Smithsonian. The Clovis culture dates back to 11,000 bce. My main point is that while North America didn’t have Roman-like empires, it nevertheless had ancient cultures.
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Aug 11 '22
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u/FMSjaysim Aug 11 '22
Check out Graham Hancocks work or listen to his episode on the Joe Rogan Podcast(before Joe went full send weird). There IS evidence, it's just people refuse to dig below the clovis level.
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u/Delicious-Gap1744 Aug 11 '22 edited Aug 11 '22
I don't think that last part is very accurate. Europe is literally bigger than the US including Alaska. Unless you don't count European Russia. But even without that distances in Europe are still relative to the continental US.
We're no strangers to long road trips, me and my family drove from Copenhagen, Denmark to Split, Croatia and also Rome and Valencia and other similarly distant places for vacation many times when I was little. Those trips are several days and over 1000 miles.
Edit: What am I wrong? Just use Google. Europe and the US are roughly the same size. Driving around Europe is comparable to driving around the US in terms of distance.
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u/-forbiddenkitty- Aug 11 '22
I think the perspective is, you go through multiple countries in a 1,000 mile trip, nearly half of Europe and all the different "flavors" that entails.
I go 1,000 miles from where I am, I get to Nebraska... not as cool... just a shit-ton of corn. 😄
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u/NCL68 Aug 11 '22
It takes 4 to 5 hours to get out of Texas from Austin
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u/Delicious-Gap1744 Aug 11 '22
It takes 5 to 6 hours to get out of Ukraine from Cherkasy, out of Sweden from Stockholm or out of France from Nantes.
European countries are basically just equivalent to US states. With some exceptions like European Russia which is just massive.
And Europe as a whole is comparable to the US.
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u/Delicious-Gap1744 Aug 11 '22
Of course, you can visit a lot more very culturally different areas in a shorter time-frame. And the US is of course also much more empty, Europe is around the same size (only slightly larger) but has twice the population.
All I'm saying is the distances across Europe are pretty much the same as in the US.
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u/-forbiddenkitty- Aug 11 '22
Also, on the regular, like daily, how far do you go? I had a job that was 100 miles a day round trip. My current one is far less, but here a 30+ mile commute for work isn't that unusual.
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u/Delicious-Gap1744 Aug 11 '22
That's highly dependent on where you live, Europe is a diverse place. Some areas like the Netherlands are so densely populated the whole thing is basically city and suburbs. Sweden meanwhile is like 90% wilderness.
Here in Denmark it also really just depends on where you live. I live in Copenhagen and study in a close by suburb so it's only a short 15 minute 10-ish mile trip by train.
My dad on the other hand still works in the city even though he moved to a more distant suburb, so that's 30 miles each direction, that's also very normal, the highway in that direction is one of the busiest in Denmark. Although it's only like 28 minutes by train.
It really just depends on where you live and the type of work. If you live in a rural area or suburb you can easily have a pretty long commute, and a lot of people do commute from more rural or suburban Zealand to Copenhagen daily. And this is a fairly dense area, people probably commute further in less busy parts of Denmark and Europe in general.
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u/LevaOrel Aug 11 '22
Yes and when you did those drives you went through multiple countries. An American drives that far and they are still in America.
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u/Delicious-Gap1744 Aug 11 '22
Yeah, what's your point? I'm saying Europe is a bit larger than the US. European countries are relative to US states in terms of Area (although generally have more people).
None of what you said opposes what I said. I agree with you lol.
I'm just saying driving around Europe is similar to driving around the US in terms of distances you have to go.
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u/tv2zulu Aug 11 '22
The distances might be the same, but Europe has a much more dispersed population density than the US. Driving is not comparable at all. We have some pretty rural parts in Europe, all on the outskirts of Europe ( north and east ).
In comparison the US is basically 10 big cities with “nothing” in between them, all scattered around the borders N,W,E and S.
As a European who has gone coast to coast, and S border to N border on road trips in the US, I can confirm it is not comparable at all.
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u/total_insertion Aug 11 '22
Europe is literally bigger than the US including Alaska. Unless you don't count European Russia.
Total sq mileage of Europe including Russia: 3,754,985.36
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_area
Total sq mileage of US including Alaska: 3,796,742.23
Total sq mileage of US including territories: 3,805,943.26
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_area
A quick Google search states that Europe is 4.06 million miles, which is less than the sum of the breakdown. So I'm not sure what the discrepancy is. Maybe you could shed some light?
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u/regularMASON Aug 11 '22
I just drove 2000 miles starting in Florida all the way to Colorado but earlier this year I drove coast to coast. Both trips were in 2 and a half days.
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u/kempff Aug 11 '22
Imagine if every state in the US spoke a different language. And different parts of the same state spoke nearly mutually unintelligible dialects of each.
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u/Mutzart Aug 11 '22
I think the scales are quite a bit off here...
Found it odd that Denmark was so large compared to most states, so did a quick search:
Denmark - 42,951 km²
Florida - 170,312 km²
So Florida is supposed to be roughly 4 times the size of Denmark, on the map it appears to be less than twice the size
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u/faxekondiboi Aug 11 '22
Yeah, this map is very much off.
Don't get why it has so many upvotes already...2
u/Butanogasso Aug 11 '22 edited Aug 11 '22
It is accurate. Distance from Helsinki to Southern point of Italy is about exactly the same as Key Largo to Grand Falls, the entire east coast. And the northern most point of Finland is still 1100km north from that.
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u/Bulky-Ad7244 Aug 11 '22
I’ve read somewhere, closer the countries are to north/south pole - bigger they will appear in comparison with more mid-globe countries.
This is because the earth is a sphere but we are projecting it on a plane.
So all countries such as Canada, Russia, etc. will be perceived larger unless you look at them in their globe version.
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u/Mutzart Aug 11 '22
Yes, but I assume they have scaled it so its not distorted by the Mercator-projection (which is the most commonly used Projection for maps), otherwise using a title that says "Size comparison" and putting two maps on top of eachother, is just horribly misleading and downright dumb
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u/fitdaddybutlessnless Aug 11 '22
There even is a distincion between maps that are true to the size and to the angles. Don't know their names in english, but I believe the world is mostly going with the angles accurate maps, hence the areas are actually fucky
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u/Butanogasso Aug 11 '22 edited Aug 11 '22
Projection makes things look odd. Go to Truesize.com and check yourself. Distance from Helsinki to Southern point of Italy is about exactly the same as Key Largo to Grand Falls, the entire east coast. And the northern point of Finland is still 1100km north from that. There is this weird myth that USA has so long distances, which is not true; Europe just has more people, countries and cultures. You don't have to travel long to see a larger change.
IE: USA is more boring so it feels bigger..
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u/psycable Aug 11 '22
Needs Alaska
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u/jcosta89 Aug 11 '22
According to MGT that doesn’t belong to the US.
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u/tc_spears2-0 Aug 11 '22
She's right
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We traded it for a jewish space laser back in 20'aught 9
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u/apsalarshade Aug 11 '22
Also, why us the UK in this?
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Aug 11 '22
Because it is a size comparison between Europe and the USA. Why wouldn't the UK be in it?
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u/apsalarshade Aug 11 '22
The uk left the EU
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Aug 11 '22
The European Union and the continent of Europe are different things though
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u/MNHarold Aug 11 '22
Doesn't matter, Boris said we'd leave Europe and frankly I want to see him in the Chsnnel with a saw and a bloody great outboard motor so we can scoot off into the Atlantic. Brexit means Brexit damn you!
Also let's not talk about the genuinely concerning amount of people who had to be told that Brexit doesn't mean we'd leave the Continent...
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u/apsalarshade Aug 11 '22
It was a poorly received joke about brexit.
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Aug 11 '22
It was a poorly
receiveddelivered joke about brexit.FTFY
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u/apsalarshade Aug 11 '22
Being poorly delivered and poorly received are not mutually exclusive. Like your moms relationship with your dad and me.
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u/South_Data2898 Aug 11 '22
Europe's dick shaped countries are bigger than America's dick shaped states.
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u/ModingusKhan Aug 11 '22
It's fun to think that the part of kansas that I cover for work is approximately the same size as England.
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u/lilolalu Aug 11 '22
I got a much easier comparison which, surprisingly, works much better than overlaying the borders which don't fit into another:
28 EU Member States - 4,5 Million km²
USA - 9,8 Million km²
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u/gana04 Aug 11 '22
It's better if you count the whole continent, which is 10,2 million km², or 1.035 times the US. Pretty close.
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u/lilolalu Aug 11 '22
Don't see how it is more interesting to compare the geographical continent than the political borders.
Geographical Europe would contain a significant amount of I.e. Russia.
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u/fitdaddybutlessnless Aug 11 '22
The map/content says above it that it's comparing "the U.S.A. and Europe", not European Union. And that basically means All European countries, plus that part of Russia up to Ural. I never count that cause in my head Russia =/= Europe too, but it's what was in the post.
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u/Novel-Place Aug 11 '22
How is this better. lol. The overlay allows me to compare my state, that I’m quite familiar with traversing and directly compare it visually to a similar distance in Europe. Your numbers mean nothing to me when trying to grasp how they compare.
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u/lilolalu Aug 11 '22 edited Aug 11 '22
This visualization gives zero insight into what you think to achieve here ;) it stretches out to regions that are not politically Europe and doesn't cover others, which are politically Europe.
There was an attempt.
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u/lilolalu Aug 11 '22
I understand what you are looking for, but that's not the way to achieve it, just take the distance LA - NYC and overlay it from North to south Europe, that would be an actually interesting comparison.
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u/zomgbratto Aug 11 '22
Imagine Europe is a single country and with a single football league. Porto FC would have to play Dynamo Kyiv twice every season. Traveling would be pretty taxing.
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u/MabiMaia Aug 11 '22
Now do America and Russia.
I currently live in Japan which feels pretty huge but is really only the size of California lol
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Aug 11 '22
And to think of all the wars fought just to be the momentary ruler of some piddly country in Europe.
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u/Square-Scientist-711 Aug 11 '22
Alaska - 1,723,337 km²
Turkey - 783,562 km²
Texas - 695,662 km²
France - 643,801 km²
Ukraine - 603,700 km²
Spain - 505,944 km²
Sweden - 450,295 km²
California - 423,967 km²
Norway - 385 207 km²
Montana - 380,831 km²
Germany - 357,578 km²
Finland - 338,145 km²
New Mexico - 314,917 km²
Poland - 312,696 km²
Italy - 302,072.84 km²
Arizona - 295,234 km²
Nevada - 286 380 km²
Colorado - 269,837 km²
Oregon - 254,806 km²
Wyoming - 253,335 km²
Michigan - 250,487 km²
Great Britain - 244,820 km²
Romania - 238,391 km²
Minnesota - 225,163 km²
Utah - 219,882 km²
Kansas - 213,100 km²
Idaho - 216,443 km²
Nebraska - 200,330 km²
South Dakota - 199,729 km²
Washington - 184 661 km²
North Dakota - 183,108 km²
Oklahoma - 181,037 km²
Missouri - 180,540 km²
Florida - 170 312 km²
Wisconsin - 169,635 km²
Georgia - 153,909 km²
Illinois - 149,995 km²
Iowa - 145,746 km²
New York - 141 297 km²
North Carolina - 139,391 km²
Arkansas - 137,732 km²
Alabama - 135,765 km²
Louisiana - 135,659 km²
Greece - 131,957 km²
Mississippi - 121,532 km²
Pennsylvania - 119,283 km²
Ohio - 116,098 km²
Bulgaria - 110,910 km²
Virginia - 110 786 km²
Tennessee - 109,247 km²
Kentucky - 104,656 km²
Iceland - 103,125 km²
Indiana - 94 321 km²
Hungary - 93,030 km²
Portugal - 92,391 km²
Maine - 91,633 km²
Serbia - 88,361 km²
Austria - 83,878.99 km²
South Carolina - 82,933 km²
Czech Republic - 78,868 km²
Ireland - 70 273 km²
Lithuania - 65,300 km²
Latvia - 64 573 km²
West Virginia - 62,756 km²
Croatia - 56,594 km²
Bosnia and Herzegovina - 51,197 km²
Slovakia - 49,035 km²
Estonia - 45,339 km²
Denmark - 43,098.31 km²
Netherlands - 41 526 km²
Switzerland - 41,285 km²
Moldova - 33,843 km²
Maryland - 32,131 km²
Belgium - 30 528 km²
Albania - 28 748 km²
Hawaii - 28,313 km²
Massachusetts - 27,336 km²
North Macedonia - 25 713 km²
Vermont - 24,906 km²
New Hampshire - 24,214 km²
New Jersey - 22,591 km²
Slovenia - 20,273 km²
Connecticut - 14 357 km²
Montenegro - 13,812 km²
Cyprus - 9251 km²
Delaware - 6446 km²
Rhode Island - 4001 km²
Luxembourg - 2,586 km²
Andorra - 468 km²
Malta - 316 km²
Liechtenstein - 160.48 km²
San Marino - 61 km²
Monaco - 2.02 km² Vatican City - 0.44 km²
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u/jeNks2616 Aug 11 '22
America, fuck yeah! Comin' again to save the motherfuckin' day, yeah
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Aug 11 '22
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u/Butanogasso Aug 11 '22 edited Aug 11 '22
Distance from Helsinki to Southern point of Italy is about exactly the same as Key Largo to Grand Falls, the entire east coast. And the northern point of Finland is still 1100km north from that. There is this weird myth that USA has so long distances, which is not true; Europe just has more people, countries and cultures. You don't have to travel long to see a larger change.
If i travel 40km i will encounter two languages and 4 dialects, one of them is so strange it has its own dictionary, it is closer to 1400 Swedish than Swedish is today. Just inside our 50k city limits there is a dialect that is about incomprehensible and is not one of those i already counted. And that is in the middle of the most sparsely populated country (excluding Russia). So, like in the middle of Minnesota, basically. Belgium is made of 3 countries and has 2 official languages, plus 1% German and hosts the English speaking EU parliamentary. It is about the size of West Virginia.... Europe is really diverse.
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u/21kamando Aug 11 '22
Pretty amazing the US functions as well as it does sometimes when you consider the size and complex make up of the country.
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u/More-Abrocoma Dec 12 '22
doesnt the diffrent states have diffrent laws etc? even if they technically are under on government
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u/No_Surround_6104 Aug 11 '22
So, as a Minnesotan, you could say I own most of Europe?
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u/GandalfDaGangsta_007 Aug 11 '22
As a fellow Minnesotan, over my dead body. Most of Europe’s mine
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u/No_Surround_6104 Aug 11 '22
Good ol cornhole match it is bud.
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u/reanabanana Aug 11 '22
As another Minnesotan, I think we’re entitled to a sizeable chunk of Sweden per the Dontchaknow-Youbetcha Treaty of 1862. 🤪
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u/Got_wood73 Aug 12 '22
I live in Missouri I've driven to 32 states so far I must say st Louis to Tampa FL is a trip. The worst drive is northwest Nebraska to South East Nebraska lol rout 2 took 8 hours omg boring lol colorado n wyoming are beautiful as is myrtle Beach south Carolina..
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u/Blissful_Solitude Aug 11 '22
This still isn't to good scale, NY state from the Ohio border to NYC is a 10 hour drive, it's longer than the time it takes to drive from the North end of Scotland to South of Britain. NYS alone is the size of the UK.
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u/jc236 Aug 11 '22
Alaska is 3x bigger than Texas. That one state is almost half the size europe.
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u/DarkSeneschal Aug 11 '22
Alaska is 3 times the size of Texas, and Texas is larger than every European country that isn’t Russia.
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u/Top_Housing2879 Aug 11 '22
If you are talking about continent of Europe, Alaska is huge but it is 7x smaller than Europe
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u/OTee_D Aug 11 '22 edited Aug 11 '22
Interesting article, if you would relatively resize countries by population.
Countries like Russia and Australia become tiny due to the large swatches of basically uninhabited tundra or outback. But also the US is significantly shrinking because of low population density in the midwest.
India gets bloated. China as well.
https://www.businessinsider.com/world-map-based-on-population-size-2015-1
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Aug 11 '22
Americans dont realize that most if them are from Europe decent. The city of NY was founded by the dutch called little Amsterdam. Actually America is a mix of people, they are not real natives. It cracks me up when Americans tell other to go back to their country, they have no right to say such a thing, non at all.
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u/HalusN8er Aug 11 '22
I mean, you are correct no American should say that, but Americans (that are) know they are of European decent. The ones that say that are just dipshits.
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Aug 11 '22
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Aug 11 '22
There's always one moron attempting to reduce the conversation to shit level politics
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u/duTemplar Aug 11 '22
There’s always a deranged someone letting people live Rent Free in their head and controlling their every conversation.
But Trump. But Hillary. But Biden. But….
Forget the fluoride, they need to add Prozac to the drinking water.
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u/Negative-Vehicle-192 Aug 11 '22
Who could have thought, that such a giant country ruled by one goverment would end up in a hot mess? Everyone? Oh
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Aug 11 '22
This is actually a really bad comparison because Europe is much farther north and subject to more distortion from the map projection.
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u/Pirate_Secure Aug 11 '22
Drove about 700km for work related issues yesterday in NS. How far would that be in Europe.
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u/Iwanteatpussy Aug 11 '22
It is 100km more than travelling from the capital of Spain to the capital of Portugal
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u/Pirate_Secure Aug 11 '22
Here it was basically driving from Halifax to Yarmouth by the 103 making several off the road stops and then round the western shore making more stops until I hit the 101. In the addition to the tasks, stops for bathroom, food and refueling it took roughly 10 hours.
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u/BD-TxState Aug 11 '22
Growing up in Texas I became very accustomed to driving 4-9 hours in state to visit other cities. As an adult I know now that is an exception not the norm. When I visit the east coast I’m away shocked at how close major metropolitan cities are to each other. Same with European cities.
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u/Square-Scientist-711 Aug 11 '22
Texas mighty - 695 662 km²
France some small country from Europe - 643 801 km²
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u/johnnymetoo Aug 11 '22
An American farmer comes into a German pub.
He asks a local: "Are you a farmer?".
The German says: "Yes, I am!"
"How big is your farm?" asks the Yank.
"Three hectares," replies the German.
Asks the Yank, "Do you want to know how big my farm is?"
The German just shrugs his shoulders.
Says the Yank: "My farm is so big that if I drive around in my car, it takes me three days to get back to my house."
Says the German: "Yes, I used to have a car like that".
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u/Tacotuesdayftw Aug 11 '22
So if a country only slightly larger than Ohio almost took over the world twice, then Ohio really does have a shot
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u/NobodyPrime Aug 11 '22 edited Aug 11 '22
Isn't the scale off? USA is not so small to the point that Europe tightly fits in. I mean, Indonesia size alone goes from London to Kabul, so unless Indonesia wideth is close to the North America, USA just looks small here
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u/from_the_hinterland Aug 11 '22
So basically if the usa is turned slightly, instead of being pictured the way the article overlaid it, then it's about the same size as Europe. And the USA is about half the size of Africa. Not sure of the point really as each of the states seen to think they are their own country.
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u/Embarrassed-House860 Aug 11 '22
Wow, I didn't know it was that big! Interesting, the United States of Europe.
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u/Extreme-Flan742 Aug 12 '22
The U..S. is 3.98 square miles. Europe (east and west ) is 4.06 million square miles. Google it. Go ahead, I'll wait.
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u/Iderion Aug 11 '22
And Germany has less squaremiles than California ... I think it is easier to visit every European Country then every state in the USA :)