How is square miles calculated from square kilometres?

One square kilometre equals about 0.386102 square miles, so the tool multiplies the km² value by that factor. Equivalently you can divide km² by 2.58999 to get mi².

Does the area include water or only land?

The figures shown are total area, which includes inland water such as large lakes and rivers as well as land. Land-only area is slightly smaller for countries with significant inland water bodies.

Which is the largest and smallest country?

Russia is by far the largest at about 17.1 million km², roughly 11 percent of the world's land. Vatican City is the smallest sovereign state at about 0.44 km², small enough to walk across in minutes.

Why do some area figures differ between sources?

Different agencies measure total versus land area, include or exclude disputed territories and dependencies, and round differently. Variations of a percent or two between this reference and another are normal.

How big is a square kilometre in everyday terms?

A square kilometre is 100 hectares, or about 247 acres, roughly the area of 140 full-size football pitches. It is a convenient unit for country-scale comparisons where square metres would be unwieldy.

What is the Country Area Reference?

Searchable reference of country total area in square kilometres and square miles, sortable from Russia at 17.1 million km² down to micro-states, with live km² to mi² conversion. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

Country Area Reference

Name: Country Area Reference
Creator: Gera Tools
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Country area reference

This reference lists the total area of countries in both square kilometres and square miles, so you can answer “how big is this country?” and compare sizes at a glance. It spans the full range from Russia, the largest state on Earth, down to the tiny European micro-states.

When this is useful

Students and teachers cross-checking atlas figures or building comparison charts.
Journalists and writers who need a quick scale reference (“France is about the same size as Texas”).
Developers and analysts pulling area data for maps, data visualisations, or geographic datasets without writing a database query.
General curiosity — it is surprisingly hard to hold country sizes in your head, and the sorted view reveals intuition-defying results (Algeria is larger than all EU member states combined).

How it works

Each country has a stored total area in km². The tool converts to square miles with a fixed factor:

area_mi2 = area_km2 × 0.386102

Total area includes inland water (large lakes and rivers), not just dry land, which is the convention most atlases use. Sorting by area ranks countries by size; sorting by name gives an alphabetical lookup. Because agencies differ on whether to count disputed regions or dependencies, figures are accurate to about a percent rather than exact to the last hectare.

Worked examples

Country	km²	mi²	Mental scale
Russia	17,098,242	6,601,668	Spans 11 time zones
Canada	9,984,670	3,855,100	Second largest
United States	9,833,517	3,796,742	Slightly smaller than Canada
Vatican City	0.44	0.17	Smaller than many city parks

For example, the conversion check on the United States: 9,833,517 × 0.386102 ≈ 3,796,742 mi² — which is exactly the figure shown in the table.

Practical notes and edge cases

Total vs land area: The figures here are total area (land plus inland water). Land-only area is smaller for countries with large lakes — for instance Canada’s land area strips out Hudson Bay and the Great Lakes.
Disputed territories: Different sources include or exclude disputed regions (e.g. Jammu & Kashmir split between India and Pakistan, or Western Sahara). Expect small discrepancies of a percent or two with other references.
Micro-states: Vatican City at 0.44 km² and Monaco at 2.02 km² are best compared in hectares (100 ha = 1 km²). At that scale Vatican City is roughly 44 hectares — smaller than a standard 18-hole golf course.
Unit choice: Use km² for scientific, UN, and international contexts. Use mi² when writing for a US audience. This tool shows both columns so you never need to guess which unit a reader expects.