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Brazil is the fifth largest country on Earth, whilst Pluto is only a dwarf planet. Still, there’s no comparison regarding which one is bigger as Brazil is a flat land mass with a surface area of 8.5 million square kilometers and a volume of 340 million sq. kilometers while Pluto is a spherical body with a surface area of 17.6 million sq. kilometers and a volume of 6.4 billion cubic kilometers.
For a more detailed breakdown of what makes both bodies as big as they, continue reading as it will be covered in more detail within the sections below.
How Big Is Brazil?
Brazil, officially known as the Federative Republic of Brazil, is a country situated in South America. However, it makes up around half of the continent’s total landmass. It is the fifth largest country in the world, only beaten by the United States, Russia, Canada, and China.
Brazil stretches for roughly 4,350 kilometers from north to south and around 4,395 kilometers from east to west, giving its circumference a total landmass of around 8.5 million square kilometers. Within this landmass of Brazil, there are approximately 216 million people, which makes it the 6th most populated country in the world.
Brazil is so large that it covers 7,400 kilometers of the Atlantic coastline, sharing over 15,000 kilometers of inland borders with just about every South American country besides Ecuador and Chile. They border Uruguay to their South, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina to their South West.
Peru lies to the West of Brazil, while Venezuela, Suriname, Guyana, and French Guiana lie to its immediate north. The total shape of Brazil forms an enormous irregular triangle that includes a huge amount of the Amazon rainforest, subtropical landscapes, savanna, wetlands, and mountainous regions.
If we are to assume that the average thickness of the land on Brazil is roughly 40km, this would lead to Brazil’s overall cubic volume reaching a relatively high number of 340 million cubic kilometers.
How Big Is Pluto?
Even though Pluto is a planet, which would have most individuals automatically assume it to be bigger than most if not all countries or continents on Earth, this won’t always be the case, especially when looking at different measurements to determine its size.
For the longest time it was assumed that Pluto, the now officially recognized dwarf planet, had a surface area smaller than the largest know country on Earth, Russia let alone Brazil .
This is because prior to the newest mission in 2015, it was estimated to have a surface area of 16.7 million km² but the New Horizons launch, which observed the planet in more detail than even before, came to a more accurate calculation of the dwarf planets surface area, coming out to be 17.6 million km².
Pluto does not have an excessive number of mountains on its surface nevertheless, some of its ice capped mountains are rather tall with certain mountain ranges reaching peaks as high as 3.55km.
In regards to the planets overall thickness, taking into account Pluto’s diameter of 2,376.6km, it would be many times the thickness of every country within Earth, whether it be Russia, Canada, the United States, China, Brazil and so on.
All in all, even if purely based on surface area Pluto is similar to that of the largest continents on Earth and possibly even smaller than some of the continents(like Asia) on our blue sphere however, when thickness and volume comes into play, Pluto blows all of them out of the water.
After all a volume of 6.4 billion cubic km is nothing to scoff at, and hardly a number that the majority if not all the flat land on Earth could even combine to beat.
Summary
Brazil may be the 5th biggest country on Earth and Pluto a dwarf planet with diameter almost half that of Brazil’s largest diameter.
However, whether it be in regards surface area where Pluto is more than double that of Brazil and a volume that is around 18 – 20 times bigger than Brazil’s, Pluto is infact the bigger of the two overall as the dwarf planet here is is a spherical body while Brazil is a flat land mass.
