What is the GDP Per Capita for Every Country?

The interactive chart below represents the GDP per capita for each country. Click on any of the buttons to view the data for that particular group of nations. You can highlight a particular country by selecting it in the dropdown box. For more details, check the notes section, or leave a comment below. The data was compiled from the 2008 CIA World Factbook.

Notes

GDP Per Capita refers to the gross domestic product per person. GDP includes personal consumption, investments, government spending and exports that a country makes. The total value of imports are subtracted from the total.
Amazonia: The eight nations in the Amazon River basin in South America.
NICs: Newly Industrialized Countries
BRICs: This is a group of four large and developing countries that was proposed by Goldman Sachs in 2001. "BRIC" is an acronym that represents the four countries in the group: Brazil, Russia, India and China.
Commonwealth: (Commonwealth of Nations) 53-member orginization of independent states; for the most part they were former components of of the British Empire.
G8: Northern hemisphere nations in the Group of Eight. Representatives from these countries meet annually. The forum was initiated in 1975 by France.
G20: Group of 20, which includes the 19 largest economies and the European Union.
ASEAN: Association of Southeast Asian Nations
OECD: The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development was formed in 1948 and includes 30 countries committed to a free-market economy and democracy.
OPEC: The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is a cartel of major oil-producing nations.
NATO: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a military alliance of many north american and european nations.
Communist: This group includes current and former communist nations.
Most Populous, Least Populous, Largest Area, Smallest Area: These groups comprise the twenty superlatives specified by the group title.
Landlocked: These countries do not have any coastline.

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FYROM is poorest than Botswana! Lol xd

posted by Anonymous

U are fyrom :)))
posted by Anonymous

12 votes

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If you want to calculate the GDP per capita of a region, you can't just average the GDP per capita of its countries. You have to sum GDPs, sum populations and make the ratio of those 2

posted by Anonymous

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I am surprised at the relatively low GDPs per capita of the BRICs. They were selected because they are large and developing quickly; supposedly, by 2050, the BRIC economies will eclipse the economies of the current-richest countries. The chart above illustrates that they have a long way to go.

posted by philosophy (240)

You are right. The regnant narrative about BRIC surpassing the West is false. OECD GDP will still be 50-100% greater than BRIC's in 2050, and many times BRIC's per capita. The West is giving up its leadership roles in deference to anti-Western ideology, not to objective reasons.
posted by unitedwest (1)

10 votes

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Curious fact: Sri Lanka's National Income accounts have an entry for "Elephant Damage". Or at least they certainly did in the late 1990s and I suspect it's still there today...

posted by Anonymous

7 votes

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GDP is a pretty weak way to judge the overall strength of a particular country's economy. It fails to include all of the following: non-market transactions, externalities and wealth distribution within a particular country. Despite those major limitations, GDP still makes for interesting comparisons.

posted by SriLanka (264)

Measures like the Gini Index or Gross National Happiness used in Bhutan are more informative, but GDP is still the grandaddy of economic measures. Its like the DJIA: its just a set of 30 companies, but most people discuss the rise/fall of the market in terms of Dow points.
posted by udaipur (208)

7 votes

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Do you have the exchange rates on which these figures were calculated? These fluctuate considerably and therefore so will the GDPs of different countires. For instance the UK's GDP recently exceeded the US's for a short while when the dollar was particularly weak!

posted by billh (6)

The charts are based on the data from the CIA World Factbook and they don\'t seem to specify the exchange rates used to calculate these figures.
posted by snippets (16)

6 votes

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There are disparities in all the groups, but one of the most striking is Oceania with Australia and New Zealand having much higher GDP per person than the others. Also, Mexico lags far behind the other countries in North America.

posted by Centrifugal (69)

What about Singapore and Brunei way out "in front" of the rest of the countries in ASEAN.
posted by mangosteen (265)

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The GDP of Liechtenstein was a lot higher then I would have ever guessed! Seems interesting seeing some of the countries that are primarily Christian like Argentina. I was unaware that signapore is considered an english speaking.

posted by Anonymous

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Belize is listed as one of the "Spanish Speaking" nations. This isn't right, is it? Don't they speak English?

posted by Anonymous

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Switzerland and Belgium are not French-speaking nations. In Switzerland 80% speaks German In Belgium 60% speaks Dutch

posted by Anonymous

According to Statistics Canada only 22. 7% of the Canadian population list French as their native tongue.
posted by Anonymous

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Russia stands out when viewing the G8 - they have a GDP per capita of nearly half of the next country, Italy.

posted by Cubberley (68)

4 votes

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All countries average is 15,000 - that's 50% higher than the 2008 estimates from IMF, World Bank and CIA factbook.

posted by dandv (7)

3 votes

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Bosnia and Herzegovina is a Mediterranean country, see a Google Earth and seeing that there is sea.

posted by Anonymous

3 votes

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This data is not the most accurate. World Bank has the most up to date and accurate data for PPP per capita. The International Comparison Program was conducted all around the world.

posted by Anonymous

3 votes

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Choosing the NATO group seems to illustrate that it really is just a "rich country" military alliance.

posted by Dobrinj (21)

with exception of Turkey and Albania of course!
posted by Anonymous

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Good old Baliwick of Guernsey is up at number 12! Being a resident of Alderney, I find this rather pleasing.

posted by Anonymous

2 votes

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The top countries of the Communist list are not communist since 1989, that's probably because they are not communist anymore :)

posted by flukas (2)

2 votes

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Afghanistan isn't under communist rule anymore

posted by Anonymous

As it says in the notes section, the communist tab refers to current AND former communist countries. In fact most of the countries listed are not currently communist.
posted by Sikkim (58)

2 votes

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Gibraltar is not a country, its a colony

posted by Anonymous

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How have the Primarily Christian countries been selected? As far as I remember there are more Christians in the USA than of all other religions put together, but they are not in the list.

posted by Anonymous

This data is not the most accurate. World Bank has the most up to date and accurate data for PPP per capita. The International Comparison Program was conducted all around the world.
posted by Anonymous

2 votes

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This thing is full of errors, Greece over $30,000?? hellooo!

posted by Anonymous

That struck me as a little high too... but I just double-checked, and that is what is reported in the 2008 CIA World Factbook, which is a reputable source for such data.
posted by andaman (234)
I had the same reaction when i saw the data for Greece
posted by Anonymous

1 votes

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great tool! can you share the data as a spreadsheet or EXCEL sheet?

posted by Anonymous

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How is the economy in China affecting the U.S.?

What are some considerations for an American citizen marrying a citizen of another country?