Whenever it comes to comparisons between the United States and other countries of the world, it is best to keep in mind the difference in mass between the two. I put together this map to illustrate what I mean: https://thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!MTY2MDk5MTk.NzY3NTM1NA*...
As you can see, ALL of the countries that rank higher are significantly smaller than the United States. In fact, some of them are even smaller than some of our smallest states. And to truly capture the point, you can see all countries can fit within the United States with plenty of room to spare. The fact that America can rank so highly with citizens so spread out, a situation of which has its own scalability challenges, is rather impressive.
Size doesn't matter though, I think the measure you're looking for is population density and perhaps terrain (thinking of Switzerland's mountains here).
Population density and terrain are important factors as well. Including those two other factors on top of size actually supports my argument further. The United States is significantly larger, less dense, and has a wider range of terrain/elemental conditions (ie. mountains, wetlands, deserts, forests, etc.). The fact that the United States ranks this high with these un-optimal conditions is again rather good.
And to address your point that size does not matter is incorrect. Size certainly does matter. It is more cost effective to service a small region of land where high amounts of people are concentrated than it is to spread infrastructure thin across great swaths of land to service the few.
> your point that size does not matter is incorrect. Size certainly does matter. It is more cost effective to service a small region of land where high amounts of people are concentrated
Size as a standalone statistic does not matter. You're correct in this quote but it contradicts your earlier point: you earlier put it forth as a separate metric with that land area tool to compare different countries without looking at population at all. I would explain it further but I think we're on the same page, just not sure what makes you think what I wrote is incorrect.
As you can see, ALL of the countries that rank higher are significantly smaller than the United States. In fact, some of them are even smaller than some of our smallest states. And to truly capture the point, you can see all countries can fit within the United States with plenty of room to spare. The fact that America can rank so highly with citizens so spread out, a situation of which has its own scalability challenges, is rather impressive.