The United States is larger: 9,833,517 km² versus 1,723,337 km² for Alaska, about 5.7 times the area.
Both areas at the same scale: Alaska and United States. Drag the outlines, separate them and see what the Mercator map hides.
Drag the outlines to overlap them, or place them side by side.
US state. Next to the whole USA, this uses the Census Bureau's 2010 total area, as the USA figure does: including coastal, territorial and Great Lakes water.
Area source: U.S. Census Bureau (2010)
The whole USA: 50 states and Washington, DC, including Alaska and Hawaii. This is not the Lower 48.
Area source: UN Demographic Yearbook 2024, Table 3
True area tells a different story than the Mercator map.
The Mercator projection enlarges areas more and more the farther they lie from the equator. The centers of the two areas lie about 64° (Alaska) and 45° (United States) from the equator. An estimate based on each center’s latitude gives an area ratio of 2.2 : 1, compared with the real ratio of 5.7 : 1. This is not a measurement of the entire outlines on a Mercator map.
Tip: You can also compare these items dynamically by clicking the link below and dragging them directly across the global interactive map.
Each figure is the area described beside its subject, from the source listed there. The overlay uses an equal-area projection. Coastal outlines are simplified and do not include all waters counted in the statistics. Their area ratio can therefore differ from the ratio of official total areas. Geometry: Natural Earth, public domain. Read the methodology ↗
The Mercator projection preserves angles, which makes it useful for navigation, but it enlarges areas more and more the farther they lie from the equator. At 60° latitude, areas already appear four times larger than at the equator. A same-scale comparison like the one on this page greatly reduces that distortion.
Alaska covers 1,723,337 km² in total, including 1,477,953 km² of land. Like the figure for the whole USA, it counts coastal, territorial and Great Lakes water. Without that water, land plus lakes and rivers comes to 1,527,950 km². Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2010.
The whole USA: 50 states and Washington, DC, including Alaska and Hawaii. This is not the Lower 48.
Alaska accounts for about 17.5% of the total US area in this comparison. The USA here includes Alaska itself and Hawaii. The often quoted figure of about 21% compares Alaska with the 48 contiguous states, or Lower 48, which is a different denominator.
