Java is 1.01× the size of Eritrea

Java (island) covers about 124,000 km² (47,800 mi²) and Eritrea (country) about 123,000 km² (47,300 mi²). Below, both outlines are drawn at one scale and centred on each other. The Java outline is Natural Earth’s, checked against the published area.

124,000km²Java
123,000km²Eritrea

200 km

Java
Eritrea

What fits

Eritrea is 99% of the size of Java.
Java is larger by 1,340 km² (519 mi²), which is 1.1% of the area of Eritrea.
Measured in Belgiums: Java is about 4.04, Eritrea about 4.00.

How they differ

Their centres are about 8,220 km apart.
On a standard web map Eritrea looks larger than Java: Java at 7°S is drawn about 1.0× too large and Eritrea at 15°N about 1.1×, so the map shows Eritrea as 1.05× the size of Java, when Java is 1.01× the size of Eritrea.
Together Java and Eritrea cover 246,000 km², close to the size of Guinea (244,000 km², 0.9% smaller).
The gap between them, 1,340 km², is about the size of Comoros (1,670 km²).
Eritrea's centre is 22.7° of latitude, about 2,520 km, farther north than Java's.
Java is an island and ranks 12th of the 81 islands on sizeversus by area.
Eritrea ranks 99th of 212 countries by area.
Laid out flat, Java stretches about 319 km north to south and 1,030 km east to west; Eritrea about 624 km by 723 km.
Our measured 124,000 km² is 3.4% below Wikidata’s published figure of 128,000 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	Java	1.01×
Farther north	Eritrea	22.7° of latitude
Stretched more on a web map	Eritrea	1.1× against 1.0×

Both against the same yardsticks

Yardstick	Java	Eritrea
Belgium 30,700 km²	4.04×	4.00×
United Kingdom 244,000 km²	0.51×	0.50×
Germany 358,000 km²	0.35×	0.34×
Japan 374,000 km²	0.33×	0.33×
France 548,000 km²	0.23×	0.22×
India 3,151,000 km²	0.04×	0.04×
Brazil 8,473,000 km²	0.01×	0.01×
United States 9,447,000 km²	0.01×	0.01×
Russia 16,980,000 km²	0.01×	0.01×

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

Side by side

	Java	Eritrea
Is a	Islandisland on sizeversus	CountryAfrica
Area, measured	124,000 km²47,800 mi²	123,000 km²47,300 mi²
Area, published	128,000 km²Wikidata	118,000 km²Wikidata
Rank by area	12th of 81islands	99th of 212countries
Latitude range	9°S to 6°S	12°N to 18°N
On the shore	1 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 Indonesia contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Java. 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 Java

Similar in size to Eritrea

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