Place comparison

Bali compared with Taiwan Main Island: area, population and density

Bali Province covers roughly a sixth of Taiwan Main Island’s land with under a fifth of its residents, leaving the two at broadly similar average densities.

Place A Grouped by country or region Place B Grouped by country or region

Equal-area outline comparison

Outlines are centered and scaled by official land area; position does not show geographic location.

Area

Population

Population density

Area data date

Population data date

The detailed guide below compares Bali Province with Taiwan Main Island. Use the selector above to explore any other pair.

Direct answer

How different are Bali Province and Taiwan Main Island?

Bali Province covers 5,590 km²; Bali Province's area is about 15.6% of Taiwan Main Island's. Its reported population is 4,461,270; Bali Province's population is about 19.3% of Taiwan Main Island's. By average density, Bali Province's population density is 1.24 times Taiwan Main Island's.

Area difference

Bali Province's area is about 15.6% of Taiwan Main Island's 5,590 km² · 35,812.1 km²

Population difference

Bali Province's population is about 19.3% of Taiwan Main Island's 4,461,270 · 23,087,329

Density difference

Bali Province's population density is 1.24 times Taiwan Main Island's 798.1 /km² · 644.7 /km²

On a familiar scale

Bali Province ≈ 1.89 × Kaohsiung City 1,253 m² of land per resident
Taiwan Main Island ≈ 12.1 × Kaohsiung City 1,551 m² of land per resident

Reference scales come from Department of Household Registration, Ministry of the Interior: Land area, households and population density by township and district (year-end 2025) , as of 2025-12-31.

How to read it

A destination most Taiwanese readers picture as a small island turns out to be a province several thousand square kilometres across.

Geography and shape

Bali is a volcanic island with a mountainous spine along its north and a broader southern lowland where most visitors stay. Taiwan Main Island is several times larger with a central range running most of its length. Seen at one scale, Bali is not small in absolute terms; it only looks small next to the countries it is usually booked alongside.

Population context

Bali holds under a fifth of Taiwan Main Island’s residents on roughly a sixth of its land, so the two average densities land closer together than the raw totals suggest. Both averages include uplands with little settlement, and neither reflects the concentration of visitors in a few coastal districts.

Boundaries and definitions

Bali here is the province, not the main island: no Indonesian government body publishes a land area for the island alone, and figures circulated as the island’s area are provincial totals. The province also administers Nusa Penida and several smaller islands, about 3.7% of its land. Official provincial areas themselves differ by source, and this page names the basis it uses. The outline is the main island’s coastline, because the mapped provincial boundary includes territorial waters. Taiwan Main Island excludes every offshore island and its population is derived.

Bali Province: Bali Province, not the main island alone. The area is the province's statutory land area, the sum of all 57 districts across its eight regencies and one city as fixed in the 2023 provincial spatial plan; it excludes the 9,152.54 km² of coastal waters the same plan assigns to the province. The population is the provincial figure for 2025, so the density shown is provincial. The province is larger than the main island because it also administers Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, Nusa Ceningan, Menjangan and Serangan — Nusa Penida district alone is 209.02 km², about 3.7% of the land. No Indonesian government body publishes a land area for the main island on its own, and figures circulated as the area of Pulau Bali are provincial totals under an island label. Official provincial areas also disagree by source, from 5,590.01 to 5,780.06 km²; this page names the basis it uses. The outline drawn here is the main island's coastline, because the mapped provincial boundary includes territorial waters and encloses roughly 21,000 km². Area and population are about two years apart.

Taiwan Main Island: The main island alone, excluding every offshore island. Area is the Ministry of the Interior's island-proper land (35,767.6263 km²) plus its reclaimed tidal land (44.4337 km²); the ministry publishes the two components but no combined main-island total. Population is derived from the same household-registration table used for Taiwan as a whole, subtracting Penghu, Kinmen and Lienchiang counties, the Pratas and Spratly Islands, and the Green Island, Orchid Island, Liuqiu and Qijin townships. No official body publishes a main-island population.

In-depth guide

How should Bali Province and Taiwan Main Island be understood in context?

A destination most readers picture as a small island is in fact a province several thousand square kilometres across. Seen at one scale it is not small in absolute terms; it only looks small beside the countries it is usually booked alongside.

Bali is larger than its reputation

Bali Province is 5,590.01 km² with 4,461,270 residents, which is a scale closer to a substantial region than to a resort island. Its geography is a volcanic island with a mountainous spine along the north and a broader southern lowland where most visitors stay. The word “island” in travel language has done a lot of work to hide that.

Taiwan Main Island, at 35,812.06 km² with a derived 23,087,329 residents, is several times larger on both counts. Putting the two outlines on one scale is the quickest way to correct the impression. The point is not that Bali is big, but that the mental picture was built from brochures rather than from land.

This is the province, not the island

No Indonesian government body publishes a land area for the main island on its own, so figures circulated as the island’s area are in practice provincial totals. The province also administers Nusa Penida and several smaller islands, about 3.7% of its land. A province-level entry is therefore the only one that can be sourced.

Official provincial areas also conflict with each other, running from about 5,590 to about 5,780 km² depending on whether the spatial plan, the geospatial agency or the statistics agency is the basis. Two sourced figures can therefore disagree without either being wrong. Name the instrument whenever the area is quoted.

Two averages that sit closer than the totals suggest

The land gap and the population gap between the two sides are of broadly similar order, so the two average densities land closer together than the raw totals would lead a reader to expect. That is the second finding on this page and it is easy to miss. It survives only if both sides are read as averages.

Both averages include uplands with little settlement, and neither reflects how visitors concentrate in a few coastal districts. The number describes residents, not the people present in high season. Use it as background for scale and go elsewhere for anything about crowding.

Questions people ask

About this geographic comparison

How big is Bali compared with Taiwan?

Bali Province is roughly a sixth of Taiwan Main Island’s land area. The exact current ratio is calculated above from the two source figures.

Is this the island or the province?

The province. Indonesian statistics are tabulated by regency and district, and no official source isolates the main island, so a province-level entry is the only one that can be sourced.

Why do published areas for Bali disagree?

Different official instruments give different totals, from about 5,590 to about 5,780 km², depending on whether the spatial plan, the geospatial agency or the statistics agency is the basis. This page states which one it uses.

Sources

Outline data: