I thought I had a pretty good grasp of the relative size of Europe and the United States, but Philip Jenkins' citation of comparative distances nevertheless held out some surprises. Jenkins writes:
As a country, the United States is far larger than any European nation. If we take the eight European nations with the largest land areas (France, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Poland, Norway, Italy, Great Britain), then their combined physical size is still less than a third that of the United States. Britain covers about the same land area as Oregon, Italy as Arizona; Belgium is about the size of maryland. The United States is a nation; it is also a subcontinent. An American who travels from New York City to Dallas has traversed 1,600 miles but remains entirely within a single nation 
throughout the trip. A European who travels a like distance has gone from London to Moscow, perhaps, or to Istanbul; or has gone from Stockholm to the far south of Sicily. In the process, our European traveler has passed through or over several different nations, cultures, and language zones. Traveling from New York City to Phoenix covers 2,500 miles of United States territory. A comparable journey within the Old World would take a traveler from London beyond the confines of Europe altogether, into Kazakhstan or Iraq, or to the legendary African city of Timbuktu." - From God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis, p. 52