Greenland is slightly smaller than Alaska in real area, even though most world maps make Greenland look much bigger. Greenland is about 2.17 million square kilometers, while Alaska is about 1.72 million, so Greenland is roughly 1.25 times the size of Alaska by area.

Quick size facts

  • Greenland: about 2,166,000 square kilometers of total area, making it the worldā€™s largest island that is not a continent.
  • Alaska: about 1,720,000 square kilometers of total area, the largest U.S. state by a wide margin.
  • So when asking how big is Greenland compared to Alaska , Greenland is about 25% larger than Alaska by total area.

Why maps make Greenland look huge

  • On common Mercator world maps, regions near the poles are stretched, so Greenland looks almost as big as continental USA, and comparable or larger than Alaska.
  • When you ā€œreprojectā€ or move Greenland down closer to the equator on a trueā€‘size comparison map, it shrinks visually and you can see it is only modestly larger than Alaska, not massively bigger.

Land vs. ice and livable space

  • Although Greenland is larger overall, around 80% of it is covered by an ice sheet, leaving a relatively narrow strip of iceā€‘free land around the coast.
  • Alaska, while slightly smaller, has much more varied and accessible iceā€‘free terrain, so in practical, livable terms many people perceive Alaska as feeling ā€œbiggerā€ and more usable than Greenland.

Simple comparison table

[1][3] [5][1] [3][1][10] [10] [10] [1][3][10]
Region Total area Ice / land notes Relative size
Greenland ā‰ˆ2,166,000 kmĀ² ~80% covered by ice sheet About 1.25Ɨ Alaska
Alaska ā‰ˆ1,720,000 kmĀ² Mostly iceā€‘free land with large wilderness About 0.8Ɨ Greenland
Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.