North Carolina is about 2.1 times smaller than Gabon.

Gabon is approximately 267,667 sq km, while North Carolina is approximately 126,161 sq km, making North Carolina 47.13% the size of Gabon. Meanwhile, the population of Gabon is ~2.3 million people (7.2 million more people live in North Carolina).
Tip: This to-scale comparison of Gabon vs. North Carolina uses the Mercator projection, which distorts the size of regions near the poles.