Largest Countries in the World, Ranked by Area
The largest country in the world is Russia, at 17,098,242 km², nearly double the runner-up. The complete ranked table below renders from the country data layer. Up here, the good stuff: what these rankings hide, and the genuinely contested question of who’s third.
Russia distorts everything
Russia is so large it breaks intuitions. It spans eleven time zones, touches both Europe and the Pacific, and covers more area than the entire continent of Antarctica. It holds land borders with fourteen countries, a record it shares with China, and after all that bordering it still finds room for Arctic and Pacific coastlines measured in the tens of thousands of kilometers. When you play the world map quiz, Russia is the one click you cannot miss, and its sheer size on the map is why every projection argument on the internet eventually mentions it.
Canada holds second at 9,984,670 km², most of it wilderness; it also owns the world’s longest coastline outright, at over 200,000 km once every Arctic island is traced.
The fight for bronze
Third place is a real dispute, not a trivia technicality. Depending on the source, either the United States or China ranks third, and the difference comes down to what you count: the US total includes large coastal and territorial waters, while land-focused measures favor China. Encyclopedias split on it; the CIA World Factbook and Britannica literally disagree. Our table states its measurement basis and ranks accordingly, and if you quote it at a quiz night and someone objects, congratulations, you’ve found the one geography argument with no winning side. Brazil takes the equally undisputed fifth, giving South America its single entry in the top tier.
The rest of the top ten runs through Australia, India (which took the most-populous title from China in 2023), Argentina, Kazakhstan (the largest landlocked country, as the landlocked list covers), and Algeria, Africa’s largest. A tidy trivia symmetry: the top ten includes at least one country from every inhabited continent.
Size and importance correlate loosely at best, which is the lesson the smallest countries list teaches from the other end: a handful of giants hold a huge share of the world’s land, while Vatican City fits inside a city park, and every one of them gets exactly one vote at the UN.
The 20 largest countries by area
| # | Country | Area | Capital |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Russia | 17,098,242 km² | Moscow |
| 2 |  Canada | 9,984,670 km² | Ottawa |
| 3 |  China | 9,706,961 km² | Beijing |
| 4 |  United States | 9,372,610 km² | Washington D.C. |
| 5 |  Brazil | 8,515,767 km² | Brasília |
| 6 |  Australia | 7,692,024 km² | Canberra |
| 7 |  India | 3,287,590 km² | New Delhi |
| 8 |  Argentina | 2,780,400 km² | Buenos Aires |
| 9 |  Kazakhstan | 2,724,900 km² | Astana |
| 10 |  Algeria | 2,381,741 km² | Algiers |
| 11 |  DR Congo | 2,344,858 km² | Kinshasa |
| 12 |  Saudi Arabia | 2,149,690 km² | Riyadh |
| 13 |  Mexico | 1,964,375 km² | Mexico City |
| 14 |  Indonesia | 1,904,569 km² | Jakarta |
| 15 |  Sudan | 1,886,068 km² | Khartoum |
| 16 |  Libya | 1,759,540 km² | Tripoli |
| 17 |  Iran | 1,648,195 km² | Tehran |
| 18 |  Mongolia | 1,564,110 km² | Ulaanbaatar |
| 19 |  Peru | 1,285,216 km² | Lima |
| 20 |  Chad | 1,284,000 km² | N'Djamena |
Frequently asked questions
What are the three largest countries in the world?
Russia first at 17,098,242 km², Canada second at 9,984,670 km², and then it depends who you ask: the United States and China trade third and fourth across sources because measurement standards differ on coastal and territorial waters. Both answers are defensible with a citation.
Why is the US vs China ranking disputed?
The two are close enough that methodology decides it. Include the US’s Great Lakes share and coastal waters and the US edges ahead; count land area more strictly and China does. Neither country is “wrong” about its own figure; they’re answering slightly different questions.
How big is Russia compared to everything else?
At 17,098,242 km², Russia is nearly twice Canada’s size and covers roughly a ninth of Earth’s land. It’s larger than the entire continent of Antarctica, and its eleven time zones mean the sun is always shining on some part of it that’s nowhere near the rest.
Is the largest country also the most populous?
Not even close, and the mismatch is great trivia. India leads the world in people with 1,463,900,000, from seventh place in area. Russia, the area champion, sits well down the population table, with vast stretches of Siberia nearly empty. Land and people follow completely different maps.