Island
South Island
Natural Earth’s outline of South Island measures about 147,000 km² (56,800 mi²), the 11th largest of the 81 islands on sizeversus, and about the same size as Nepal.
200 km
- South Island
- Nepal
The numbers
- 147,000km²Area, measured56,800 mi² · Natural Earth outline
- 150,000km²Area, publishedWikidata · 2.1% 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 South Island
- Greenland (island), the largest of the 81 islands ranked on sizeversus, is 14.8× the size of South Island; South Island ranks 11th.
- South Island sits between Sulawesi (166,000 km²) and Java (124,000 km²) in the ranking.
- Counted as a country, South Island would be larger than 120 of the 212 countries listed on sizeversus and would rank 93rd by area, between Tunisia (157,000 km²) and Nepal (147,000 km²).
- It is larger than 27 of the 51 US states and districts (the biggest of them is Florida, 147,000 km²) and smaller than 24.
- It is larger than 11 of the 31 provinces and regions of China (the biggest of them is Liaoning, 147,000 km²) and smaller than 20.
- The closest US state is Florida (147,000 km²): South Island is about the same size as Florida.
- On a standard web map (Web Mercator), a place at 44°S is drawn about 1.9× too large in area, so South Island looks bigger there than it is.
- Laid out flat, South Island stretches about 679 km north to south and 630 km east to west.
- Our measured 147,000 km² is 2.1% below Wikidata’s published figure of 150,000 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
Countries
Where it lies
Natural Earth’s outlines of New Zealand contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of South Island. That is what its geometry says, and it is not a statement about who owns the water or where any border runs in it.
Where South Island ranks
South Island is the 11th largest of the 81 islands on sizeversus, ranked by measured area.
Compare South Island
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Sources and method
- Outline
- Natural Earth, 1:10m Geography Regions (geography_regions_polys), public domain (Geography Regions (geography_regions_polys)). Outlines of lakes are drawn at 1:10 million.
- Boundary
- A lake or a sea has no legal boundary of its own. The outline is a cartographic one, and the page says so by showing the measured area beside the published one.
- Area basis
- Measured outline: computed on the WGS84 ellipsoid from the full-detail outline and shown rounded. Published figure: Wikidata (CC0), fetched 2026-11-11. An outline is kept within 10% of the published figure and matched to other places automatically within 5%.
- Shore
- Countries whose Natural Earth outline contains or comes close to the water's outline; computed, not a statement of ownership.
- Drawing
- Each outline is projected with an equal-area projection centred on its own centroid, so areas stay true and two can be laid over each other.
- Data built
- 2026-11-11