Original MapBench study · 2026-10-14
Largest Country Geometries in the MapBench World Dataset
A reproducible ranking of country polygon areas calculated from the generalized world-atlas/Natural Earth geometry used by MapBench maps.
What the ranking shows
Country polygons are measured on the sphere using one consistent generalized world dataset.
Russia has the largest polygon area in this dataset at about 16,924,641 km².
| Rank | Country | Geometry area | Centroid |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Russia | 16,924,641 km² | 66.07°, 95.79° |
| 2 | Antarctica | 12,236,435 km² | -84.97°, 82.51° |
| 3 | Canada | 9,984,482 km² | 60.48°, -96.40° |
| 4 | United States of America | 9,494,438 km² | 44.76°, -103.57° |
| 5 | China | 9,408,030 km² | 36.68°, 103.45° |
| 6 | Brazil | 8,540,870 km² | -10.66°, -53.17° |
| 7 | Australia | 7,702,394 km² | -25.76°, 134.31° |
| 8 | India | 3,150,440 km² | 22.82°, 79.54° |
| 9 | Argentina | 2,784,475 km² | -34.74°, -64.75° |
| 10 | Kazakhstan | 2,721,812 km² | 48.41°, 67.24° |
| 11 | Dem. Rep. Congo | 2,333,706 km² | -2.84°, 23.58° |
| 12 | Algeria | 2,319,428 km² | 28.09°, 2.61° |
| 13 | Greenland | 2,189,783 km² | 73.15°, -41.96° |
| 14 | Mexico | 1,973,957 km² | 23.91°, -102.22° |
| 15 | Saudi Arabia | 1,924,638 km² | 24.09°, 44.64° |
| 16 | Sudan | 1,857,310 km² | 15.97°, 29.83° |
| 17 | Indonesia | 1,827,574 km² | -2.27°, 117.36° |
| 18 | Libya | 1,636,683 km² | 26.99°, 18.03° |
| 19 | Iran | 1,618,539 km² | 32.47°, 54.45° |
| 20 | Mongolia | 1,540,317 km² | 46.95°, 103.02° |
Method
Area is calculated with d3-geo's spherical geoArea and converted using an Earth surface area of 510,072,000 km².
Important caveat
These country rankings use generalized world-atlas/Natural Earth geometry intended for small-scale mapping. Polygon area, bounds and centroid can differ from official national statistics because coastlines, islands, disputed boundaries and geometry detail are represented differently.
Use these results as a reproducible comparison of one consistent public world geometry dataset, not as a replacement for official land-area or legal-boundary figures.
Reproduce the measurements
Use MapBench tools and the downloadable dataset to check individual values or reproduce the ranking.