Greenland vs United States: Size Comparison

Greenland covers 158,475 square miles of land; the United States covers 3,531,837 square miles — the US is about 22 times larger than Greenland. On the Mercator wall maps most of us grew up with, Greenland looks like a continent-sized rival to North America, looming over the Atlantic. The reality is far smaller: Greenland would fit inside the United States more than twenty-two times over. About 80 percent of Greenland is buried under an ice sheet up to two miles thick, and its population is under 60,000 — fewer people than live in a mid-sized American suburb. The illusion comes from map projection, not geography: near the poles, Mercator stretches landmasses dramatically. Greenland sits mostly above 60 degrees north latitude, where the distortion is extreme. In true size, it is closer to Mexico's scale than to any continent — a big island, not a sleeping giant.

Greenland vs United States by the numbers

In other words, you could fit Greenland inside United States about 22.3 times. Area figures are land area (square miles).