The size of Wales

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"The size of Wales" is a phrase known for its use by the British news media to enable size comparisons of large areas to be made; by quoting the size of unfamiliar areas in terms of a familiar area (for example, "twice the size of Wales"), the listener, reader, or viewer has less brainwork to do than if presented with an area measured in millions of hectares, thousands of square kilometres, etc.

The origin of and reasons for the choice of Wales (rather than England, Scotland, etc.) as a unit of measurement is unknown, but its prevalence as a unit probably results from the convenience of its size (neatly 20,000 square km). Equally conveniently, England is the size of 6.5 Waleses, and Scotland is the size of 4 Waleses.

It may also be from memetic founder effects. The only other widely used measure of similar size is the "Belgium" (as in "three times the size of Belgium").

Among frequently used references to "the size of Wales" is that an area of Amazon rainforest the size of Wales is cleared every year.

German media will sometimes use Saarland, the smallest state in Germany.

In the United States, newscasters similarly refer to the sizes of Texas (big) and Rhode Island (small) when discussing geographic areas, as well as an American football field when considering sizes related to structures. Texas is more than 33 times the size of Wales, while Wales is about 5 times the size of Rhode Island. (Although Alaska is much larger than Texas in terms of size, Texas is commonly used due to its legendary "larger than life" reputation, and the term "Texas-sized" has entered the popular vocabulary to mean something larger than normal.)

The British comedy show The Eleven O'Clock Show parodied the use of this measurement, by introducing a news article about an earthquake in Wales, stating that an area the size of Wales was affected. It has also been humorously suggested that the "microWales" - an area of a little over two hectares or five acres - could be used to replace the football pitch as a rough unit of measurement for smaller areas.

The World Factbook, being aimed for American readers, uses fractions and multiples of the sizes of U.S. states to give the areas of countries other than the US in comparative terms, assuming that an American reader will be more familiar with the concept of an area, say, "twice the size of Colorado" than France.