Sweden is 1.17× the size of Baltic Sea

Sweden (country) covers about 446,000 km² (172,000 mi²) and the Baltic Sea (sea) about 381,000 km² (147,000 mi²). Below, both outlines are drawn at one scale and centred on each other. The Baltic Sea outline is Natural Earth’s, checked against the published area.

446,000km²Sweden
381,000km²Baltic Sea

200 km

Sweden
Baltic Sea

Baltic Sea: Natural Earth draws the Baltic Sea as its main basin and cuts out the Gulf of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Riga and the Bay of Mecklenburg. This page adds them back; the Kattegat and the Danish straits are not counted.

What fits

Baltic Sea is 85% of the size of Sweden.
Sweden is larger by 64,900 km² (25,000 mi²), which is 17% of the area of Baltic Sea.
Measured in Belgiums: Sweden is about 14.5, Baltic Sea about 12.4.

How they differ

Their centres are about 432 km apart.
A standard web map misstates the comparison: Sweden at 62°N is drawn about 4.7× too large and Baltic Sea at 59°N about 3.7×, so the map shows Sweden as 1.46× the size of Baltic Sea instead of 1.17×.
Together Sweden and Baltic Sea cover 827,000 km², close to the size of Namibia (823,000 km², 0.6% smaller).
The gap between them, 64,900 km², is about the size of Lithuania (64,900 km²).
Sweden's centre is 3.5° of latitude, about 390 km, farther north than Baltic Sea's.
Sweden ranks 58th of 212 countries by area.
The Baltic Sea is a sea and ranks 15th of the 40 seas on sizeversus by area if counted as one.
Laid out flat, Sweden stretches about 1,520 km north to south and 655 km east to west; the Baltic Sea about 1,320 km by 1,160 km.
Counted as one, the 5 pieces measure 381,000 km². The published figure for the whole, 377,000 km² (Wikidata, for the whole), is 1.1% below it.

Who wins on what

Measure	Winner	By
Larger area	Sweden	1.17×
Farther north	Sweden	3.5° of latitude
Stretched more on a web map	Sweden	4.7× against 3.7×

Both against the same yardsticks

Yardstick	Sweden	Baltic Sea
Belgium 30,700 km²	14.5×	12.4×
United Kingdom 244,000 km²	1.83×	1.56×
Germany 358,000 km²	1.25×	1.07×
Japan 374,000 km²	1.19×	1.02×
France 548,000 km²	0.81×	0.70×
India 3,151,000 km²	0.14×	0.12×
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

	Sweden	Baltic Sea
Is a	CountryEurope	Sea5 pieces counted together
Area, measured	446,000 km²172,000 mi²	381,000 km²147,000 mi²
Area, published	447,000 km²Wikidata	377,000 km²Wikidata
Rank by area	58th of 212countries	15th of 40seas
Greatest depth	–	459 mWikidata
Latitude range	55°N to 69°N	54°N to 66°N
On the shore	–	8 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 Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Russia, Germany, Latvia, Poland and Denmark lie within 25 km of the outline of the Baltic 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 Sweden

Similar in size to Baltic 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