Total & land area: Japan vs US size comparison [2026]

The United States is 26 times bigger by total area compared to Japan: 3,794,100 sq mi vs 145,936 sq mi. Without inland water, the land area of the United States is 3,531,839 sq mi vs 140,761 sq mi for Japan — a 25.1 times difference in territory size.

Japan ranks 62/197 by total surface area vs 3/197 for the United States.
Japan occupies 0.24% of the land mass of all countries, compared with 6.14% for the United States.
12.6% of Japan's area is agricultural land vs 46.1% in the United States.
Japan has 0.1% of the world's agricultural land area — the US has 8.83%.
68.4% of Japan is covered by forests, compared to 33.9% in the US.
0.62% of the world's forests are in Japan, and 7.67% are in the United States.

True size map comparison: Japan vs United States

See how Japan and the United States 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

	Japan	United States
Total area	145,936 sq mi	3,794,100 sq mi
Size difference ratio	1	26
Total area rank	62/197	3/197
Share of all countries' surface area	0.07%	1.93%
Land area	140,761 sq mi	3,531,839 sq mi
Land area difference ratio	1	25.1
Land area rank	61/197	3/197
Share of all countries' land area	0.24%	6.14%
Population	123,975,371	341,784,857
Population density	872 ppl/mi²	97.3 ppl/mi²

Surface area by type

	Japan	United States
Forest area	96,275 sq mi	1,196,125 sq mi
Forest area as share of land	68.4%	33.9%
Forest area rank	23/196	4/196
World's forests share	0.62%	7.67%
Agricultural land area	17,788 sq mi	1,627,576 sq mi
Agricultural land share	12.6%	46.1%
Agricultural land area rank	92/194	2/194
Share of global agricultural land	0.1%	8.83%
Arable land	15,614 sq mi	585,190 sq mi
Arable land share	11.1%	16.6%
Arable land area rank	56/191	2/191
Permanent cropland	981 sq mi	12,242 sq mi
Permanent cropland share	0.7%	0.35%
Permanent cropland area rank	75/192	14/192
Water area	5,175 sq mi	262,262 sq mi
Water as share of total area	3.55%	6.91%
Water area rank	37/197	3/197
Roads length	757,310 mi	4,092,730 mi
Land borders length	0 mi	7,458 mi
Coastline length	18,486 mi	12,380 mi
Share of marine protected waters	13.8%	19%

Size of Japan compared to states in USA

If Japan were a state in the US, it would be the 5th biggest by land area: larger than New Mexico, smaller than Montana, and 1.86 times smaller than the size of Texas.

#	State	Land area	Compared to Japan
1	Alaska	570,641 sq mi	x4.05
2	Texas	261,232 sq mi	x1.86
3	California	155,779 sq mi	x1.11
4	Montana	145,546 sq mi	x1.03
*	Japan	140,761 sq mi	*
5	New Mexico	121,298 sq mi	0.86
6	Arizona	113,594 sq mi	0.81
7	Nevada	109,781 sq mi	0.78
8	Colorado	103,642 sq mi	0.74
9	Wyoming	97,093 sq mi	0.69
10	Oregon	95,988 sq mi	0.68
11	Idaho	82,643 sq mi	0.59
12	Utah	82,169 sq mi	0.58
13	Kansas	81,759 sq mi	0.58
14	Minnesota	79,627 sq mi	0.57
15	Nebraska	76,824 sq mi	0.55
16	South Dakota	75,811 sq mi	0.54
17	North Dakota	69,001 sq mi	0.49
18	Missouri	68,742 sq mi	0.49
19	Oklahoma	68,595 sq mi	0.49
20	Washington	66,456 sq mi	0.47
21	Georgia	57,513 sq mi	0.41
22	Michigan	56,539 sq mi	0.4
23	Iowa	55,857 sq mi	0.4
24	Illinois	55,519 sq mi	0.39
25	Wisconsin	54,158 sq mi	0.38
26	Florida	53,625 sq mi	0.38
27	Arkansas	52,035 sq mi	0.37
28	Alabama	50,645 sq mi	0.36
29	North Carolina	48,618 sq mi	0.35
30	New York	47,126 sq mi	0.33
31	Mississippi	46,923 sq mi	0.33
32	Pennsylvania	44,743 sq mi	0.32
33	Louisiana	43,204 sq mi	0.31
34	Tennessee	41,235 sq mi	0.29
35	Ohio	40,861 sq mi	0.29
36	Virginia	39,490 sq mi	0.28
37	Kentucky	39,486 sq mi	0.28
38	Indiana	35,826 sq mi	0.25
39	Maine	30,843 sq mi	0.22
40	South Carolina	30,061 sq mi	0.21
41	West Virginia	24,038 sq mi	0.17
42	Maryland	9,707 sq mi	0.07
43	Vermont	9,217 sq mi	0.07
44	New Hampshire	8,953 sq mi	0.06
45	Massachusetts	7,800 sq mi	0.06
46	New Jersey	7,354 sq mi	0.05
47	Hawaii	6,423 sq mi	0.05
48	Connecticut	4,842 sq mi	0.03
49	Puerto Rico	3,459 sq mi	0.02
50	Delaware	1,949 sq mi	0.01
51	Rhode Island	1,045 sq mi	0.007
52	Guam	209.7 sq mi	0.001
53	Northern Mariana Islands	179.2 sq mi	0.001
54	US Virgin Islands	133.7 sq mi	0.001
55	American Samoa	76.4 sq mi	0.0005
56	District of Columbia	61 sq mi	0.0004

Japan vs United States size on the map

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

GeoRank.org/size/japan/united-states | CC BY

The map above outlines the borders of Japan and the United States 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.

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