Country Land Border Length Quiz

Total land-border length sums every kilometer of a country's land boundaries. China holds the record at roughly 22,457 km. Russia is second at around 22,408 km. Brazil, India, and Kazakhstan round out the top five.

Quirks of the metric

Argentina has one of the longest single land borders in the world: 5,308 km with Chile, defined almost entirely by the Andes ridge line. The shortest international land border in the world is the roughly 85 m strip between Spain and Morocco at the Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera. Island nations have zero land border length. Saudi Arabia and Yemen completed border demarcation only in 2000 after a century of dispute.

Did you know?

• China and Russia's shared border alone is over 4,000 km — longer than the entire eastern seaboard of the United States.
• The longest land border between two countries is the US-Canada border at nearly 9,000 km.
• Bangladesh has a long border with India full of "enclaves" — tiny patches of each country embedded inside the other.
• The shortest international border in the world is Botswana-Zambia, around 150 metres at the Kazungula crossing.
• Andorra and Liechtenstein each have just two neighbours, and both are landlocked by mountainous countries.
• The DMZ between North and South Korea is 4 km wide and 250 km long — and one of the most heavily fortified.
• India and Bangladesh swapped 162 enclaves in 2015, settling a decades-old border anomaly.
• The China-Mongolia border is one of the world's longest international land borders at over 4,600 km.
• Russia's border with North Korea is only 17 km long — one of the shortest in the world.
• Egypt and Sudan dispute control of the Hala'ib Triangle, a roughly 20,000 km² region.
• The Argentina-Chile border is the longest in the Southern Hemisphere at over 5,000 km.
• The India-Pakistan border is fully fenced and floodlit — visible from space at night.
• The Schengen Area allows passport-free travel across most of mainland Europe.
• Norway's border with Russia is one of the few NATO-Russia land borders and is patrolled by reindeer herders.
• The Vatican has the shortest border perimeter of any sovereign state at just 3.2 km.

Where the data comes from

Every figure in this category is drawn from Total land-border length. Data is refreshed quarterly; if a number looks wrong, tell us and we will check the source.