China is enormous: it covers about 9.6 million square kilometers (around 3.7 million square miles), making it one of the very largest countries on Earth by area.

Quick Scoop: How big is China?

  • Total area is usually given as roughly 9,600,000 km².
  • In square miles, that’s about 3,700,000 sq mi.
  • This puts China around 3rd–4th in the world by area, very close in size to the United States.
  • It stretches from deserts and high plateaus in the west to long coastlines and river deltas in the east, which is why its climates and landscapes are so diverse.

Think of it this way: you could fit most of Western Europe inside China’s borders and still have room left over.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.