Comparative Size and Population

Being from California, when you wish to make trips to see some of her sites, long car rides are a given. Ask any New Yorker what would constitute a regularly traveled "long drive" and they usually say either Buffalo or Montreal, both about six to six and a half hours away according to Google map recommendations and obeying speed-limits, and, for those readers who know a thing or two about California, it's about the same distance as San Luis is from Grass Valley, but still less than Sacramento to LA.

Comparing "long" trips relative to each other, I end up thinking about other comparisons. Having driven or rode across the entire US thrice, with another long drive from SLO to Texas, I have a decent sense of the sizes of theses united States, and not just a book-smarts idea, but also a visceral been-there-and-counted-the-hours kind of feeling.

So sometimes I look up things that pique my interests. For example: Iran is slightly larger than Alaska, a state I've never been to, with a population around 66.5 million. That's ten million more than the combined populations of Texas(2) and California(1), the US's two most populous states. That's pretty big, with lots of people. Okay...

How about Afghanistan? Afghanistan is slightly smaller than Texas--which means it's still pretty big--with 33.6 million people, close to California's population.

Thinking about these two countries--one of which we're actively trying to conquer and the other the target of the conservative drumbeat for war--led me to check on another scene of American war-of-choice, Vietnam. The spindly Mekong-hugging ocean-kisser is slightly larger than New Mexico, while housing a whopping 87 million people. 

Enough war? How about a peaceful Scandinavian country, Iceland? Boasting the world's oldest functioning legislative assembly, the Althing, formed in 930, Iceland is slightly smaller than Kentucky, with a population of nearly 307 thousand, less than a tenth that of our Kentucky, which stands at just over 4 million.

Another entry of useless stuff...these facts and others can be found here.