Country comparison: Iran / Saudi Arabia

This country comparison is a concise, tabular overview of numerous data from our respective country pages for Iran and Saudi Arabia. There, we provide many explanations and details per country that go far beyond this comparison.

General information

	Iran	Saudi Arabia
Region:	South Asia	Western Asia
Area:	1,745,150 km²	2,149,690 km²
National language:	Persian	Arabic
Government form:	Islamic Republic	Absolute monarchy
Independent since:	1906 AD	1932 AD
Capital:	Tehran	Riyadh

Population

Details for Iran and Saudi Arabia

	Iran	Saudi Arabia
Population:	87,923,000	35,950,000
Inhabitants/km²:	50.4	16.7
Life expectancy males:	Ø 72 years	Ø 75 years
Life expectancy females:	Ø 78 years	Ø 78 years
Average age:	Ø 31.7 years	Ø 30.8 years
Birth rate:	14.23 ‰	18.24 ‰
Death rate:	5.57 ‰	2.91 ‰
Migrationrate:	-0.30 ‰	5.52 ‰

Quality of life

Values from 0 (bad) to 100 (very good)
See also: Explanations and country ranking on quality of life

	Iran	Saudi Arabia
Political stability:	22	58
Civil rights:	13	45
Health:	56	63
Climate:	58	55
Cost of Living:	31	75
Popularity:	41	44

Economy

	Iran	Saudi Arabia
Currency:	Iranian rial (1 IRR = 100 Dinars)	Saudi rial (1 SAR =20 Qirshes = 100 Hallalas)
Unemployment rate:	11.5 %	7.4 %
Inflation rate:	43.39 %	3.06 %
Cost of Living: (USA = 100%)	92.53 %	44.46 %
Commercial taxes and contributions:	44.70 %	15.70 %
Average income:	3,530 US$	21,540 US$
Corruption index:	75 (very bad)	49 (moderate)

	IRN: total	per 1000 inh.	SAU: total	per 1000 inh.
Gross domestic product:	359,713 M US$	4.09 M US$	833,541 M US$	23.19 M US$
Gross national product:	310,228 M US$	3.53 M US$	775,463 M US$	21.57 M US$
Exported goods:	29,727 M US$	0.34 M US$	286,502 M US$	7.97 M US$
Imported goods:	17,503 M US$	0.20 M US$	213,016 M US$	5.93 M US$

Infrastructure

Details for Iran and Saudi Arabia

	IRN: total	per 1000 inh.	SAU: total	per 1000 inh.
Roadways:	223,485 km	2.54 km	221,372 km	6.16 km
Railways:	8,484 km	0.10 km	5,410 km	0.15 km
Harbours:	893	0.0102	392	0.0109
Passenger airports:	43	0.0005	26	0.0007

Energy balance

Details for Iran and Saudi Arabia

	IRN: total	per 1000 inh.	SAU: total	per 1000 inh.
Energy consumption:	236.30 bn kWh	2.69 m kWh	296.20 bn kWh	8.24 m kWh
Energy production:	272.30 bn kWh	3.10 m kWh	324.10 bn kWh	9.02 m kWh
Energy export:	6.82 bn kWh	77,590.24 kWh	0.00 kWh	0.00 kWh
Energy imports:	4.22 bn kWh	48,007.68 kWh	0.00 kWh	0.00 kWh
CO2 emissions:	630.01 m t	7,165.44 t	523.78 m t	14,569.52 t

Telecommunication

Details for Iran and Saudi Arabia

	Iran	Saudi Arabia
International dialing:	+98	+966
Internet domain:	.ir	.sa

	IRN total	IRN per 1000 inh.	SAU total	SAU per 1000 inh.
Landlines:	29,306,782	333	6,594,631	183
Mobile cellulars:	135,889,424	1546	45,427,321	1264
Internet server:	197,804	2	145,941	4
Internet users:	69,104,068	786	35,950,396	1000
Broadband Internet:	10,674,899	121	10,588,164	295

Healthcare system

Details for Iran and Saudi Arabia

	Iran	Saudi Arabia
Hospital beds per 1000 inh.:	1.56	2.24
Physicians per 1000 inh.:	1.14	2.39
Diabetes:	9.6 %	15.8 %
HIV:	0.04 %	0.07 %
Tuberculosis:	0.12 ‰	0.08 ‰
Tuberculosis cure rate:	84.0 %	90.0 %
Smokers:	13.6 %	14.3 %

Climate

We also provide a more detailed climate comparison of both countries.
The data for each country can be found here: Iran and Saudi Arabia

	Iran	Saudi Arabia
Daytime temperatures:	26.8 °C	32.9 °C
Nighttime temperatures:	13.8 °C	19.6 °C
Rel. humidity:	49 %	45 %
Rain days:	2.9	1.1
Sunshine hours per day:	8.1	8.4

Native languages

	Iran	Saudi Arabia
Arabic:	2.0 %	95.0 %
Persian:	53.0 %	n/a
Azerbaijanian:	14.3 %	n/a
Kurdish:	9.1 %	n/a
Luri:	5.6 %	n/a
Gilaki:	5.3 %	n/a
Mazandarani:	3.6 %	n/a
Balochi:	2.0 %	n/a
Bakhtyari:	1.3 %	n/a
Turkmen:	1.2 %	n/a
other:	2.6 %	5.0 %

Religions

	Iran	Saudi Arabia
Islam:	96.5 %	99.0 %
Christianity:	0.4 %	n/a
Bahaism:	0.4 %	n/a
Hinduism:	n/a	0.1 %
other:	2.7 %	0.9 %

Data inventory and updates

A country comparison like this can be based on several hundred individual data items from dozens of different sources. All data are based on the most recent data available to us. Most of them refer to the previous year and are updated around March of the following year. If a country has not yet published data for the most recent or penultimate year, we present the most recent official data. Updates are made on an ongoing basis depending on the subject area or source, so there is no single "cutoff date" for this comparison. Sources for almost all data can be found on our respective country pages.

Iran	Saudi Arabia
All information: Iran	All information: Saudi Arabia
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