Crete

The numbers

• 8,010km²Area, measured3,090 mi² · Natural Earth outline
• 8,340km²Area, publishedWikidata · 3.9% above our measure

The area is measured from the outline drawn above, on the WGS84 ellipsoid; the published figure is shown beside it, and a water body is kept only if the two are within 10%.

What the numbers say about Crete

• Greenland (island), the largest of the 81 islands ranked on sizeversus, is 271× the size of Crete; Crete ranks 72nd.
• Crete sits between Disko Island (8,140 km²) and Anticosti Island (7,700 km²) in the ranking.
• Counted as a country, Crete would be larger than 45 of the 212 countries listed on sizeversus and would rank 168th by area, between Lebanon (10,000 km²) and Palestine (6,070 km²).
• It is larger than 3 of the 51 US states and districts (the biggest of them is Delaware, 5,170 km²) and smaller than 48.
• It is larger than 1 of the 31 provinces and regions of China (the biggest of them is Shanghai, 6,750 km²) and smaller than 30.
• The closest Chinese province is Shanghai (6,750 km²): Crete is 1.19× the size of Shanghai.
• On a standard web map (Web Mercator), a place at 35°N is drawn about 1.5× too large in area, so Crete looks bigger there than it is.
• Laid out flat, Crete stretches about 81 km north to south and 251 km east to west.
• Our measured 8,010 km² is 3.9% below Wikidata’s published figure of 8,340 km². Published areas of lakes and seas move with the water level and with what is counted, so a few percent is expected.

About the same size as

Where it lies

• Greece

Natural Earth’s outlines of Greece contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Crete. That is what its geometry says, and it is not a statement about who owns the water or where any border runs in it.