Alaska is 1.09× the size of Barents Sea

Alaska (state) covers about 1,505,000 km² (581,000 mi²) and the Barents Sea (sea) about 1,378,000 km² (532,000 mi²). Below, both outlines are drawn at one scale and centred on each other. The Barents Sea outline is Natural Earth’s, checked against the published area.

1,505,000km²Alaska
1,378,000km²Barents Sea

1,000 km

Alaska
Barents Sea

What fits

Barents Sea is 92% of the size of Alaska.
Alaska is larger by 128,000 km² (49,300 mi²), which is 9.3% of the area of Barents Sea.
Measured in Belgiums: Alaska is about 49.1, Barents Sea about 44.9.

How they differ

Their centres are about 4,550 km apart.
On a standard web map Barents Sea looks larger than Alaska: Alaska at 64°N is drawn about 5.2× too large and Barents Sea at 75°N about 14.5×, so the map shows Barents Sea as 2.55× the size of Alaska, when Alaska is 1.09× the size of Barents Sea.
Together Alaska and Barents Sea cover 2,883,000 km², close to the size of Argentina (2,783,000 km², 3.5% smaller).
The gap between them, 128,000 km², is about the size of Nicaragua (129,000 km²).
Barents Sea's centre is 10.8° of latitude, about 1,200 km, farther north than Alaska's.
Alaska is a state of the United States; it is not drawn with its waters removed, and its measured area is the Natural Earth outline's.
The Barents Sea is a sea and ranks 7th of the 42 seas on sizeversus by area.
Laid out flat, Alaska stretches about 1,930 km north to south and 3,640 km east to west; the Barents Sea about 1,710 km by 1,360 km.
Our measured 1,378,000 km² is 3.3% below Wikidata’s published figure of 1,424,000 km². Published areas of lakes and seas move with the water level and with what is counted, so a few percent is expected.

Who wins on what

Measure	Winner	By
Larger area	Alaska	1.09×
Farther north	Barents Sea	10.8° of latitude
Stretched more on a web map	Barents Sea	14.5× against 5.2×

Both against the same yardsticks

Yardstick	Alaska	Barents Sea
Belgium 30,700 km²	49.1×	44.9×
United Kingdom 244,000 km²	6.17×	5.65×
Germany 358,000 km²	4.21×	3.85×
Japan 374,000 km²	4.03×	3.69×
France 548,000 km²	2.75×	2.51×
India 3,151,000 km²	0.48×	0.44×
Brazil 8,473,000 km²	0.18×	0.16×
United States 9,447,000 km²	0.16×	0.15×
Russia 16,980,000 km²	0.09×	0.08×

Each figure is the place's area divided by the yardstick's.

Side by side

	Alaska	Barents Sea
Is a	StateUnited States	Seasea on sizeversus
Area, measured	1,505,000 km²581,000 mi²	1,378,000 km²532,000 mi²
Area, published	1,718,000 km²Wikidata	1,424,000 km²Wikidata
Rank by area	–	7th of 42seas
Greatest depth	–	600 mWikidata
Latitude range	51°N to 71°N	67°N to 82°N
On the shore	–	2 on the shore

Published figures: Wikidata (CC0). A lake or a sea has no legal boundary: the measured area is that of Natural Earth’s outline, and it is shown beside the published one.

Natural Earth’s outlines of Russia and Norway lie within 25 km of the outline of the Barents Sea. That is what its geometry says, and it is not a statement about who owns the water or where any border runs in it.

Similar in size to Alaska

Similar in size to Barents Sea

More comparisons

Sources and method

Outlines: Lakes and seas: Natural Earth 1:10m physical vectors (public domain), kept only where the measured area is within 10% of the published one. Countries and regions: Natural Earth, 1:10m Admin 0 and Admin 1, public domain.
Boundary: De facto, as drawn by Natural Earth. A lake or a sea has no legal boundary of its own; the outline is a cartographic one.
Area: Measured on the WGS84 ellipsoid from the full-detail outlines, shown rounded. The published figure comes from Wikidata (CC0), fetched 2026-11-11, and is shown beside the measured one.
Drawing: Each outline is projected with an equal-area projection centred on its own centroid, so areas stay true and the two can be laid over each other.
Data built: 2026-11-11

Full method