List of Largest Countries in the World by Area

Russia is the largest country in the world by a huge margin. At about 17.1 million square kilometres, it covers more land than the next-largest country, Canada, plus all of Europe. It spans eleven time zones and borders fourteen other countries by land. Yet despite its size, Russia has a smaller population than Bangladesh, because much of its vast northern and eastern territory is too cold, too mountainous, or too remote to support dense settlement. The geographic distribution of the world's largest countries is revealing. Four of the top ten are in the Americas — Canada, the United States, Brazil, and Argentina. Three are in Asia — Russia, China, and India. Two are island or semi-island continents — Australia and Antarctica is usually excluded from the list because it has no permanent government. The tenth, Kazakhstan, is the largest landlocked country in the world. There is an important distinction in how area is measured. The figures most commonly cited are 'total area,' which includes inland water bodies like lakes and rivers. Rankings by 'land area only' can differ — for example, the United States edges past China on total area (partly thanks to the Great Lakes) but China is slightly larger on land area alone. Country size correlates only loosely with wealth or population, but it correlates strongly with one thing: resource endowment. The largest countries hold most of the world's forests, freshwater, mineral deposits, and arable land. Russia alone holds about 20 percent of the world's forests.