I have often heard Europeans express their surprise when they realize just how large the United States really is. In one instance, I even heard from a European who thought that it was possible to drive from Los Angeles to New York City in a day or two while seeing some sights along the way. I’m sure this person knew those two cities are far apart, but it seems they didn’t realize the cities are separated by 2,800 miles of road. This means that if you wanted to make this drive in 1 day, you would have to drive nonstop at an average speed of 117 MPH, but remember, this is assuming you will never have to make a stop. If you took 2 days, your trip would be much more leisurely — and legal; you would be able to complete the drive while obeying the speed limits with 7 hours to spare, in case you needed to stop for food, gas, or sleep during your two days on the road.
In reality, this trip is anywhere from impossible to absurd if you only plan one or two days; you would need to plan no less than a week, but two or three weeks would make it more comfortable. So then, it’s obvious that the United States is large, but just how large is it?
The United States is actually more comparable to the continent of Europe than any individual nation in Europe. When it comes to total area, the United States is a little more than 93% the size of Europe.
There are 50 states and 50 officially recognized European countries, and because Europe is slightly bigger than America, the average state is just 3% smaller than the average European country, however, most states appear to be in the 40,000 to 100,000 mi2 range, whereas most European countries seem to be in the 10,000 to 50,000 mi2 range.
Fun fact: the average size of a US state is just over 76,000 mi2, which appears to hearken back to the year 1776, which could be written as ’76.
This gave me the idea to find which states are equivalent in combined area to which European countries; I’ll only consider the portion of each country that is in the European continent. Let’s see how big the states really are.
Russia
Russia is the largest country in the world by land size, in fact, it is almost twice the size of the entire United States. This obviously means that all of the states combined are smaller than all of Russia, but the portion of Russia that is in Europe is only about the size of Alaska, Texas, California, Montana, New Mexico, Arizona, and Louisiana combined; this includes the 6 largest states.
While writing this post, I only expected to accentuate the vastness of the states, but I must admit that I now find myself shocked to see the immensity of Russia, especially since the portion of Russia that I am considering is only 23% of all of Russia’s land!
Russia is the one European country that is bigger than Alaska. The portion of Russia that is in Europe is about the size of 2.3 Alaskas, or if you come from Texas, 5.7 Texases; the total area of Russia is slightly more than 9.9 Alaskas, or 24.6 Texases. If Texas was scaled up proportionally to the size of Russia, then there would be 726 million Texans, which is more than every American that has ever existed, and Brewster County would be more than half the original size of Texas. Now that’s a lot of brisket, rodeos, and cowboys!
Don’t believe me? Check out this map.
France
If you combine the area of Montana and Florida, it would be about the same size as European France, excluding Guadeloupe and Martinique in North America, French Guiana in South America, and Mayotte and Réunion in Africa, which are all part of the nation of France.
Spain
The total area of Spain is approximately the same as that of the states of Nevada and Utah.
Germany
Germany’s size is about the size of the states of Colorado, South Carolina, and Rhode Island combined.
Norway
Norway is only slightly bigger than Arizona and Hawaii in total.
Italy
Italy is almost the same size as Arizona and Delaware joined.
The United Kingdom
If Minnesota, Connecticut, and Rhode Island were put together, they would be just a little bigger than the United Kingdom.
What’s very strange about this comparison is that, when you rotate Minnesota clockwise about 160º and then place Connecticut and Rhode Island near Minnesota’s southeastern corner, these three states seem to not only resemble the UK in size, but also shape. Furthermore, Connecticut and Rhode Island also resemble Northern Ireland in proportion, relative to the other piece of the land: Minnesota is about as big to Connecticut and Rhode Island as Great Britain is to Northern Ireland.
One more interesting fact about this comparison is that the United States didn’t gain independence from the United Kingdom, as that nation technically did not yet exist; the United States gained independence from Great Britain, which is the UK minus Northern Ireland. This means that the Thirteen Colonies gained independence from a nation that was about the size of Minnesota.
Greece
Whenever I combined the area of states and compared it to the area of European countries, I expected that they would not be exactly equal, in fact, most of the results varied by a couple hundred square miles, however, I was absolutely shocked when I combined the area of Kentucky and Massachusetts, because it was exactly the same as that of Greece, down to the square mile! Your results could vary, depending on your source, but based on the numbers that I was given, they were equal: 40,408 mi2 (Kentucky) + 10,554 mi2 (Massachusetts) = 50,962 mi2 (Greece).
Therefore Greece is not just similar in area to Kentucky and Massachusetts, but it is equal to them.
Bulgaria
When compared by total area, Bulgaria is about the size of Virginia.
Portugal
Portugal is simply about the size of Maine.
Austria
Austria’s total area is similar to that of the states of Maryland, Hawaii, and New Jersey combined.
Latvia
The nation of Latvia is very close to the size of West Virginia.
The Netherlands
When Massachusetts and Connecticut are merged, their total area is equivalent to the area of the Netherlands.
Belgium
Belgium has about the same area as Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Montenegro
The state of Connecticut is just a little bigger than Montenegro.
Bonus: Rhode Island
While trying to find a European country that was almost exactly the same size as Rhode Island, the smallest US state, I could not find one that was close enough to call equivalent. The best I could do was say that Rhode Island was more than one and a half times bigger than Luxembourg. I also discovered that Rhode Island is bigger than the nations of Luxembourg, Andorra, Malta, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Monaco, and Vatican City combined. The smallest US state is bigger than Europe’s 7 smallest countries altogether.
What are your thoughts after seeing this approximation of the scale of US states compared to European countries? Does the United States seem larger or smaller than what you thought, and does Europe seem larger or smaller?
Onward American 
Very interesting topic, I‘m honestly astonished on how you keep this going even the years including since you started this website. It‘s good to read your writing and ideas again. I forgot how great your abilities with the English language; It has improved vastly. If you still want to collaborate let me know.
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Thank you for checking out my blog again, I really appreciate it! And thank you for the compliment, I am glad to know that I have improved. I am still interested in collaborating; are there any ideas you have in mind that you would like to collaborate on?
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Europe seems smaller than I thought.
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