Total & land area: Bahamas vs Costa Rica size comparison

Costa Rica is 3.69 times bigger by total area compared to the Bahamas: 19,761 sq mi vs 5,358 sq mi. Without inland water, the land area of Costa Rica is 19,714 sq mi vs 3,865 sq mi for the Bahamas — a 5.1 times difference in territory size.

The Bahamas ranks 157/197 by total surface area vs 126/197 for Costa Rica.
The Bahamas occupies 0.007% of the land mass of all countries, compared with 0.03% for Costa Rica.
1.3% of the Bahamas' area is agricultural land vs 33.1% in Costa Rica.
The Bahamas has 0.0003% of the world's agricultural land area — Costa Rica has 0.04%.
50.9% of the Bahamas is covered by forests, compared to 60.4% in Costa Rica.
0.01% of the world's forests are in the Bahamas, and 0.08% are in Costa Rica.

True size map comparison: Bahamas vs Costa Rica

See how the Bahamas and Costa Rica compare in true size on the map. Drag the outlines to different latitudes to see how the Mercator projection affects their apparent size.

Total size and land area comparison

	Bahamas	Costa Rica
Total area	5,358 sq mi	19,761 sq mi
Size difference ratio	1	3.69
Total area rank	157/197	126/197
Share of all countries' surface area	0.003%	0.01%
Land area	3,865 sq mi	19,714 sq mi
Land area difference ratio	1	5.1
Land area rank	162/197	126/197
Share of all countries' land area	0.007%	0.03%
Population	401,283	5,129,910
Population density	104.7 ppl/mi²	262.6 ppl/mi²

Surface area by type

	Bahamas	Costa Rica
Forest area	1,969 sq mi	11,907 sq mi
Forest area as share of land	50.9%	60.4%
Forest area rank	139/196	90/196
World's forests share	0.01%	0.08%
Agricultural land area	50.2 sq mi	6,534 sq mi
Agricultural land share	1.3%	33.1%
Agricultural land area rank	176/194	125/194
Share of global agricultural land	0.0003%	0.04%
Arable land	30.9 sq mi	645 sq mi
Arable land share	0.8%	3.27%
Arable land area rank	168/191	142/191
Permanent cropland	11.6 sq mi	1,456 sq mi
Permanent cropland share	0.3%	7.39%
Permanent cropland area rank	168/192	62/192
Water area	1,493 sq mi	46.3 sq mi
Water as share of total area	27.9%	0.23%
Water area rank	74/197	138/197
Roads length	1,678 mi	3,129 mi
Land borders length	0 mi	411 mi
Coastline length	2,201 mi	802 mi
Share of marine protected waters	7.7%	28.4%

Bahamas vs Costa Rica size on the map

Data sources: World Bank | Agriculture & Rural Development (2026, retrieved 2026-04-06).

GeoRank.org/size/bahamas/costa-rica | CC BY

The map above outlines the borders of the Bahamas and Costa Rica but is not accurate for size comparison because it's a 2d map with Mercator projection that distorts territories near the poles. The farther a country is from the equator, the more magnified it appears. More about country size projections.