Here’s How Big the U.S. Population Is

I want to be careful about how I present this, because sometimes the size of the United States relative to other countries is used as though it should be some rhetorical trump card in political arguments. (“Well, that’s impossible—the U.S. is just too big.”) Population is not a trump card. Things are possible. That said, differently-sized populations have different challenges in governing. Ignoring the size (and socioeconomic/cultural diversity, for that matter) of the United States relative to other nations is equally, if not more flawed, than pretending the country’s just too big for whatever program the arguer’s opponent is promoting. People, myself included, don’t have a great grasp of how large different nations’ populations are (I would not have guessed North Korea’s population is larger than Australia’s). It’s helpful for us all to be reminded now and then. The U.S. is big. A few other populations are bigger. Many are smaller. Iceland’s populace is less than half the size of North Dakota’s.

The table below uses data from the Census Bureau and the United Nations to compare the populations of Scandinavian, Western European, East Asian, Oceanic, and a few other countries/governing bodies (the E.U.) to those of the United States. I didn’t spend much time deciding which countries to include, but if you’re curious about a country that’s not on the list, well—my apologies for sending you to Google. Here’s the table. For whatever it’s worth.