Below I explain what "area" means and then give each country's area and the area of its capital city. Numbers are approximate — different sources round slightly differently.
Quick note on units and conversion
Area is usually given in square kilometres (km²). To convert km² to square miles (sq mi) multiply by about 0.386102. Example: 1,000 km² ≈ 386.1 sq mi.
List (country area, then capital city and capital area)
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China
- Country area: about 9,596,961 km² (≈ 3,705,407 sq mi)
- Capital: Beijing (municipality) — area about 16,410 km² (≈ 6,337 sq mi)
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India
- Country area: about 3,287,263 km² (≈ 1,269,219 sq mi)
- Capital: New Delhi — administrative region is the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, area about 1,484 km² (≈ 573 sq mi). The smaller New Delhi municipal area (the city centre) is around 42.7 km² (≈ 16.5 sq mi).
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South Africa
- Country area: about 1,221,037 km² (≈ 471,445 sq mi)
- Capitals: South Africa has three official capitals:
- Administrative / executive: Pretoria (part of the City of Tshwane). Pretoria city proper is roughly 687 km² (≈ 265 sq mi); the larger City of Tshwane metropolitan area is about 6,368 km² (≈ 2,459 sq mi).
- Legislative: Cape Town — City of Cape Town (metropolitan) area about 2,461 km² (≈ 950 sq mi).
- Judicial: Bloemfontein — Bloemfontein city proper ≈ 236 km² (≈ 91 sq mi); the Mangaung metropolitan municipality that contains it is much larger (several thousand km²).
- Note: because South Africa uses different cities for different branches of government, you may see different "capital" names depending on context.
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New Zealand
- Country area: about 268,838 km² (≈ 103,728 sq mi)
- Capital: Wellington (Wellington City) — area roughly 450 km² (≈ 174 sq mi) depending on how the city boundary is measured.
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Argentina
- Country area: about 2,780,400 km² (≈ 1,073,518 sq mi)
- Capital: Buenos Aires (Autonomous City) — area about 203 km² (≈ 78 sq mi). The larger Greater Buenos Aires metro area is much bigger.
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England
- Area of England (part of the UK): about 130,279 km² (≈ 50,301 sq mi)
- Capital: London — Greater London area about 1,572 km² (≈ 607 sq mi). (The tiny "City of London" is much smaller, about 2.9 km².)
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United States of America (USA)
- Country area: land area about 9,525,067 km² (≈ 3,677,649 sq mi); total area including inland water and coastal water about 9,833,517 km² (≈ 3,796,742 sq mi).
- Capital: Washington, D.C. — area about 177 km² (≈ 68 sq mi)
Tips and things to watch out for
- Different sources round or measure areas slightly differently. Always check if a source states land area only or total area (land + water).
- For capitals, sometimes you need the small city proper (e.g., New Delhi municipal area) or the larger metro/territorial area (e.g., NCT Delhi). I gave common territorial/administrative areas which are usually most useful in comparisons.
- If you need exact up-to-the-minute official values for a homework assignment or a map project, tell me which country or capital you want checked and I can give the most current official figure and its source (year and agency).
If you'd like, I can make a clean table with just the numbers for printing or help convert any of these into different units (hectares, acres, or a scaled map).