Is the United States Bigger Than the European Union?

The European Union (EU) consists of 28 member nations. The largest city in the EU is London while Brussels is the de facto capital city. Though the EU is not a country, the EU has developed into a single market unit where all the members have agreed on standard laws for several matters. The United States is a country of states, self-governing territories, and other divisions. The largest city in the US is New York City while Washington, D.C. is the capital city. By land area, the United States is larger than the European Union. The United States is approximately 3.8 million square miles, and the EU has an area of around 1.7 million square miles. 

Is the USA Bigger Than Europe?

There are other ways to compare the size of two places. Although the World Factbook makes it clear that the United States is indeed more physically massive than the EU, that doesn't mean that it is bigger in all other ways. 

For example, how do the populations of Europe and the United States compare? The European Union has a considerably larger population than the United States even though the US is at least twice as large. The EU has a population of about 510 million people while the United States has a population of 325 million people. In other words, the population of the EU is around 1.5 as big as that of the US.

Measuring things from an economic standpoint is even more difficult. Methods include purchasing power parity, nominal gross domestic product (GDP), and more.  However, some studies argue that this is where the difference between the EU and the US is most insignificant. For example, in 2017, the EU had a GDP of around $19.9 trillion while the US had a GDP of about $19.4 trillion. Even then, there is still a massive disparity between the two regions. For example, the higher population of the EU means that the average US citizen has a higher per-capita income than an EU citizen. However, the EU has an income structure that is more equally distributed compared to that of the US. On the Gini index, which measures wealth and income distribution, the EU has a score of 31.0 while the US has a score of 45.0.

Continental Europe

Continental Europe refers to the entire landmass that is known as Europe. Continental Europe is larger than the US in terms of size. With an area of about 3.9 million square miles, continental Europe has an area that is about 1.04 times as much as the US.