Face towel sizes look simple until you try to compare them. 'XL' is not a size. '10 × 12 in' is a size, if you convert it. '20 cm' is half a size, and half a size is what a lot of pages publish.
Of 121 international product pages, 69 carried two dimensions that could be converted and compared. The rest either gave one side, gave a format name, or gave nothing in the accessible text.
The gap between markets is a gap between page types
Japan is the outlier in the good direction: 19 of 20 pages gave comparable dimensions, largely because the brands in that panel publish a full sheet size in the product name or the specification block. Korea went the other way, with 4 of 20. German pages sat at 9, the UAE at 9, the US and UK at 14 each.
That spread tells you more about publishing habits than about towels. A Japanese drugstore listing and a Korean social-commerce listing are built by different teams with different templates, and the template decides whether a size field exists at all.
Why the second number matters
Area, not width, is what a buyer actually compares. Median captured sheet area in the panel ran from 400 cm² in Japan to 720 cm² in Germany, and that range is made of brand and channel choices, not national preference. A 20 × 20 sheet is 400 cm². A 20 × 30 sheet is 600. The difference shows up in coverage per wipe, in sheets per pack at a given fold, and in carton volume.
It also decides whether a price-per-sheet figure means anything. Two packs at the same price per sheet, one at 400 cm² and one at 720 cm², are not the same offer.
What this does not say
These pages do not establish what any country prefers. The panels have different brand mixes, different channels, and in three markets a visible share of cross-border listings. A missing size may be printed on the pack and simply absent from the page. And the median areas are medians of what was captured, not of what is sold.