Red Sea is 1.09× the size of California

The Red Sea (sea) covers about 446,000 km² (172,000 mi²) and California (state) about 410,000 km² (158,000 mi²). Below, both outlines are drawn at one scale and centred on each other. The Red Sea outline is Natural Earth’s, checked against the published area.

446,000km²Red Sea
410,000km²California

200 km

Red Sea
California

What fits

California is 92% of the size of Red Sea.
Red Sea is larger by 36,500 km² (14,100 mi²), which is 8.9% of the area of California.
Measured in Belgiums: Red Sea is about 14.5, California about 13.4.

How they differ

Their centres are about 13,200 km apart.
On a standard web map California looks larger than Red Sea: Red Sea at 20°N is drawn about 1.1× too large and California at 37°N about 1.6×, so the map shows California as 1.27× the size of Red Sea, when Red Sea is 1.09× the size of California.
Together Red Sea and California cover 856,000 km², close to the size of Pakistan (873,000 km², 2.0% bigger).
The gap between them, 36,500 km², is about the size of Taiwan (36,200 km²).
California's centre is 17.0° of latitude, about 1,890 km, farther north than Red Sea's.
The Red Sea is a sea and ranks 13th of the 42 seas on sizeversus by area.
California 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.
Laid out flat, the Red Sea stretches about 1,740 km north to south and 1,000 km east to west; California about 1,060 km by 909 km.
Wikidata’s published figure of 446,000 km² agrees with our measured 446,000 km², to within 2%.

Who wins on what

Measure	Winner	By
Larger area	Red Sea	1.09×
Farther north	California	17.0° of latitude
Stretched more on a web map	California	1.6× against 1.1×

Both against the same yardsticks

Yardstick	Red Sea	California
Belgium 30,700 km²	14.5×	13.4×
United Kingdom 244,000 km²	1.83×	1.68×
Germany 358,000 km²	1.25×	1.15×
Japan 374,000 km²	1.19×	1.10×
France 548,000 km²	0.81×	0.75×
India 3,151,000 km²	0.14×	0.13×
Brazil 8,473,000 km²	0.05×	0.05×
United States 9,447,000 km²	0.05×	0.04×
Russia 16,980,000 km²	0.03×	0.02×

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

Side by side

	Red Sea	California
Is a	Seasea on sizeversus	StateUnited States
Area, measured	446,000 km²172,000 mi²	410,000 km²158,000 mi²
Area, published	446,000 km²Wikidata	424,000 km²Wikidata
Rank by area	13th of 42seas	–
Greatest depth	3,040 mWikidata	–
Latitude range	12°N to 28°N	33°N to 42°N
On the shore	6 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 Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Eritrea, Yemen, Sudan and Djibouti lie within 25 km of the outline of the Red 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 Red Sea

Similar in size to California

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