California's Big, But How Big Is It Compared To … Spain?

Have you ever caught yourself wondering how big California is compared to New Zealand? How about California's population compared to that of the United Kingdom? Maybe you were curious about the Golden State's Gross Domestic Product compared to Spain's?

To help satisfy that hunger for random knowledge, designers with SpareFoot — a Texas-based self-storage and moving consultancy — created infographics comparing U.S. states' sizes, populations and GDPs with those of randomly picked countries from around the world.

The findings are quite entertaining, and informative, to review.

"Surprisingly enough, if California were a country it would also be considered relatively big, ranking as the 59th largest country by area out of around 200 countries, just a tad larger than Paraguay," the website says of the Golden State. "However, those stats may not give you a great idea of how California’s girth actually compares to different countries, since size is often better understood visually."

As a storage and truck rental website, SpareFoot provides useful content to both people who are planning a move and storage businesses looking for customers, SpareFoot SEO Strategist Brian Shreckengast told Patch in an email. To that end, SpareFoot sought to assist prospective movers by providing fun facts about potential moving destinations.

So what's different between these comparisons and, say — Google Maps?

The most widely used Mercator map projections distort the sizes of countries in favor of more accurate borders. That means nations farther from the equator often look much larger than they are when compared to nations closer to the equator.

Forming its comparisons using www.thetruesize.com, which corrects Mercator map distortions by properly converting the actual sizes of nations around the globe, SpareFoot has created 10 similar infographics for other U.S. states, including Georgia, Texas, Oregon and Nevada.

While there are no current plans to do the other 40 states in the Union, SpareFoot spokesman Roger Telosa said, "If we find that people are interested in seeing more of our project, we might continue doing more states."

So how big is California? Check out the infographic below to find out. And to see the other infographics, visit SpareFoot's website.

Via SpareFoot

By Travis Loose (Patch Staff) and Renee Schiavone / Image via Shutterstock