IT’S EASY FOR Ireland to get too big for its britches when superlative terms like “the best small country in the world” get thrown around the place willy-nilly.

But just how small are we? Very small. A mere blip on the Earth’s surface, in fact.

Here are some facts to illustrate just how tiny we are.

1. Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan all have larger populations than Ireland.

Not so smug now, are we?

2. Ever hear of the bustling metropolis of Butte, Montana? No? It’s nearly 6x the size of Dublin.

Darragh Sherwin Darragh Sherwin

Butte (LOL) has an area of 1,867.6 km^2.  Dublin, meanwhile, is petite by comparison at 318 km^2.  

I like big Buttes, etc.

3. You could fit 202 Irelands in Russia.

Alexey Nikolskiy Alexey Nikolskiy

4.When 400,000 people bought tickets to see Garth Brooks, it constituted 10% of our population.

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5. The length of the two Luas lines is 36.5km combined.

The London Underground is 402km. 

infomatique infomatique

6. Tokyo, with an area of 2,187.66 km², is just a tiny bit bigger than Co Cavan, which has an area of 1,931 km².

Population of Tokyo? 13,185,000.

Population of Co. Cavan? 73,183.

Man of Yorkshire Man of Yorkshire

7.  It’s so small that Facebook will eventually suggest that you know celebrities.

8. You could squeeze Louth into Texas 843 times.

9. More people live in a square kilometre of Manila than do in the whole of Co Longford.

10. Driving time from Malin Head to Mizen Head: less than 8 hours.

Driving time from Moscow to Vladivostok: at least 115 hours.

The horror.

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