The size of Wales is a phrase that has become legendary 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 (e.g. 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 merely from memetic founder effects. The only other high-profile 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.

External link

• sizeofwales.co.uk — includes a tool to enable the conversion of conventional measurements into "Waleses".