Does Egypt have more people than Iran?

Iran is the larger country, with about 1.6 million km² of land against Egypt’s 995,000 km², and both are major powers in their regions, so the two might seem evenly matched. But in the World Bank’s 2025 estimates Egypt has about 118 million people and Iran about 92 million, so Egypt has about 26 million more. What the map hides is how Egypt’s people live. Most of the country is desert, and its towns, farms and industry depend heavily on the Nile, with people concentrated in the river valley, the Nile Delta and along the Mediterranean coast. Egypt’s land figure is therefore a poor picture of the space people actually live in. Averaged over all its land, Egypt has about 119 people per km², about twice Iran’s 57.