The aircraft carriers depicted here in a GlobalSecurity.org graphic are drawn to scale.
GlobalSecurity.org says there are currently 31 aircraft carriers in the world's navies and the folks at Wikipedia say 37. That's partly a consequence of definitions, with Wikipedia including one South Korean ship, two Japanese ships and three French ships in the aircraft carrier total that Global Security excludes.
Each of the icons in the graphic is an accurate depiction of the flight deck as seen from above, all drawn to the same scale. Each of the middle column of ships is roughly the size of the Empire State Building.
From GlobalSecurity.org:
An aircraft carrier is a ship that is capable of operating fixed wing aircraft, including jump-jets such as the Harrier. America has nearly twice as many aircraft carriers - 19—as the rest of humanity combined—12—and America's aircraft carriers are substantially larger than almost all the other's aircraft carriers. The Navy likes to call the big Nimitz class carriers "4.5 acres of sovereign and mobile American territory"—and all nineteen American carriers of all classes add up to nearly over 65 acres of deck space. Deck space is probably a good measure of combat power. The rest of the world's carriers have about 25 acres of deck space, approximately one third that of America's [until 2011, this number was only 15 acres, but new Chinese and Italian vessels upped the total appreciably]. [...]
Japan was a pioneer in carrier based aviation prior to the Second World War, but has not operated aircraft carriers since that time, as they are considered offensive rather than defensive weapons. In recent years, Japan has built a succession of small "carrier-like" vessels, including four "13,500 ton" [light] but nothing approaching an actual aircraft carrier. Japan is currently building a pair of 22DDH helicopter destroyers that are aircraft carriers in everything but name, with a larger flight-deck [though not displacement] than the aircraft carriers with which Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. [...]
Sometimes it is difficult to understand the scope of American military power relative to that of the rest of the world.
Not depicted on the graphic above is the Ford-class,
USS Gerald R. Ford, which was launched last year but is still under construction and has yet to take to the high seas. The most recent estimated cost to the taxpayers the
Ford is $12.8 billion, 22 percent more than the 2008 budget set for it. That's twice the 2014 fiscal year budget of New Mexico. Plus, there was $4.7 billion spent on research and development for the carrier.
When it finally comes into service, the U.S. will have 20 carriers afloat.