When my US friends and colleagues asked me about my home country, Taiwan, I often found it helpful to map Taiwan's high-level metrics into US states, which my colleague can better relate to.
Taiwan is closest to the following US states in metrics:
- Area: Maryland (MD: 32,131 km^2; TWN: 36,197 km^2)
- Population: Texas (TX: 29M; TWN: 24M)
- GDP (nominal): Washington (WA: $576B; TWN: $586B)
Another sensible comparison is with Hawaii, because Taiwan is an island nation.
- Area: Taiwan is 28% bigger (TWN: 36,197 km^2; HI: 28,313 km^2)
- Population: Taiwan is 16.8x(!) more populous (TWN: 24M; HI: 1.4M)
- GDP (nominal): Taiwan is 6.3x bigger (TWN: $586B; HI: $93B)
In my mind this really highlights how densely populated and economically vibrant Taiwan is.
I thought of this comparison now because of recent US tensions with Iran. I have Iranian friends and colleagues, but I've never been there, nor have I been a studious person when it comes to middle-east geopolitics, so I wanted to make the comparison to help me understand.
Iran is closest to the following US states in metrics:
- Area: Alaska (AK: 1,723,337 km^2; IR: 1,648,195 km^2)
- Population: California + Texas + Florida (CA + TX + FL: 89M; IR: 83M)
- GDP (nominal): Michigan (MI: $537B; IR: $459B)
I don't have a good conclusion or soundbite, other than that I pray that US and Iran won't start a war...
(Reference: all numbers came from the most recent estimate that I found on wikipedia)
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