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How Big Is The Moon Compared To The Us?

It’s fair to say that the US is a pretty large country. In fact, it’s one of the largest countries on Earth. Only behind China, Canada, and Russia, in fact. But what about in relation to the moon? Well, let’s find out!

So, how big is the moon compared to the US? The moon is roughly 4x bigger than the US, with a surface area of approximately 38 million square kilometers compared to the 9,372,610 square kilometers of the USA. In other words, The whole of the US can fit on the moon whilst leaving plenty of space.

In fact, the moon’s surface area is of a size that is approximately the equivalent of the US combined with all of Russia and Canada. 

Let’s paint another picture! The moon’s surface could fit all of the US, Europe, China, Brazil, and South Africa on it.

While from here, it doesn’t look too big, rest assured, the moon is also pretty damn big! 

How big exactly, and how it compares to the US in size, is what we’ll continue to discuss below!

How Big Is The United States Of America?

The United States of America is approximately 9,372,610 square kilometers. This makes it the fourth biggest country in terms of land area size, above Brazil and below China, Canada, and Russia.

The USA is the fourth biggest country in the world when it comes to area size.

Located in the northern hemisphere and the western hemisphere on the North American continent. 

To our north is Canada, the second largest country in the world, which is always shocking because we look bigger on the world map. But give it up, folks; Canada is bigger.

To our East is the Atlantic Ocean, to the West the Pacific Ocean, and to the South is Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico.

The US consists of 50 states. You may even live in one of these states. 

So, of course, when measuring the USA up, we also include the likes of Alaska and Hawaii of, which aren’t directly connected to the main body of the nation.

The total area size of the United States of America is, therefore, approximately 9,372,610 square kilometers (which is equivalent to 3,618,783 square miles).

Russia, the biggest country on our planet, measures in at a whopping 17,098,242 square kilometers. Canada is 9,984,670 square kilometers, and China is 9,706 961 square kilometers.

So Canada and China are pretty similar to the US. It’s just Russia that is well out in front by being nearly double the size.

The USA is 2,800 miles wide from the eastern seaboard to the west coast. It is 1,582 miles from the north border to the south border.

Russia, Canada, and China are the only countries wider than our nation. 

In comparison to the biggest country, Russia, the width is measured at approximately 6,200 miles. So it’s a hell of a lot wider, you could say, than the US.

Canada’s width measures in at about 4,426, whilst Brazil’s is 2,603 miles.

The USA is about 2 and a half times wider than India and four and half times wider than France.

Germany is a mere 6 times smaller than the US, whilst the USA is also TEN, yes ten, times wider than the United Kingdom.

How Big Is The Moon?

Our moon measures in with a surface area of 38 million square kilometers (14.6 million square miles). That makes it the fifth biggest moon in our solar system and way bigger than any country on Earth.  

Earth’s moon, our very own natural night light, is the fifth largest moon in our solar system. 

Our moon is so big that it’s even bigger than the dwarf planet Pluto, which is the smallest planet in our solar system.

How big exactly is it? Let’s get into the numbers.

  • The moon’s mean radius is 1,737.5 kilometers (1,079.6 miles).
  • Its mean diameter is 3,475 kilometers (2,159.2 miles).
  • The moon’s equatorial circumference is 10,917 km (6,783.5 miles).
  • And the Surface area measures in at 38 million square kilometers (14.6 million square miles),

So compare that to the figures in the last chapter. It is clearly bigger than Earth’s biggest country, Russia.

Although it’s much bigger than the US, the moon is actually a lot smaller than Earth.

In fact, the moon’s surface area is actually smaller than that of the whole continent of Asia, which is 44.5 million square kilometers. 

Going back to Earth, the moon is less than a third of the width of our home planet.

Its diameter is about a quarter of the Earth’s, meaning four moons could fit side by side across the Earth.

To give you an example of what that looks like, think of the Earth as a nickel and the moon as a coffee bean. You would be able to fit four coffee beans onto one nickel.

Now we are primarily talking about surface area measurements here. 

But we could open a huge can of worms if we started talking thoroughly about mass and density measurements as well.

But maybe this will paint a picture of how big the moon is, or should I say how small it is compared to Earth.

Let’s pretend that our Earth is hollow and there is a door we can open that leads into its center. Here, we can store whatever we like.

Now, let’s say we want to clone the moon and store these clones in the Earth’s hollow center. 

Don’t ask questions; everyone has their reasons for doing the things they do. 

And besides, I think it would be handy to have a few spare moons stored somewhere in case something happened to the original.

Now, how many moons would we be able to store inside the Earth? 

The answer is a huge 50 moons! 

So yes, Earth is considerably bigger than the moon, but the moon still outsizes our home nation.

How Many United States Can Fit On The Moon?

When it comes to surface area measurements, we can fit four full United States onto the moon’s surface with a little bit of room spare.

So, with all that said, how many United States could we actually fit on the moon? 

Now, remember, we’re not talking about how many United States could fit IN the moon, as that makes things very complicated.

What we are concerned with working out here is how many United States could fit on the surface area of the moon’s lunar surface.

It’s a case of seeing how many times the United States’ surface area measurement figure fits into that of the moon.

So, what do we know? We know that the moon has a much bigger surface area than the United States, so the latter could easily fit on the former at least once.

We know that the moon’s surface area measurement is about 38 million square kilometers, whilst the United States is about 9,372,610 square kilometers.

So we know that the moon’s surface is a little over 4 times bigger than that of the United States. 

So it’s simple! 

By this logic, we know that 4 United States could fit onto the moon’s surface with a little room spare. 

To put the sheer size of the moon’s surface area into perspective, let’s look at another example.

We could fit the US, Russia, and Canada all onto the moon’s surface at the same time. 

We could also fit the US, China, Brazil, South Africa, and all of Europe onto the surface.

But if we’re strictly using the US, 4 is the number of times we can fit a whole US onto the moon. 

Finally

So, the moon, when it comes to surface area, is much bigger than the United States of America.

Four and a bit times bigger, in fact. 

The moon is so big that it’s bigger than Earth’s biggest country, Russia.

But don’t let the moon fool you. It’s big, but it’s nowhere near as big as our beautiful home planet, Earth.

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