Map: US States Renamed For Countries With Similar GDPs

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a convenient way of measuring and comparing the size of national economies. Annual GDP represents the market value of all goods and services produced within a country in a year. Put differently:

GDP = consumption + investment + government spending + (exports – imports)

Although the economies of countries like China and India are growing at an incredible rate, the US remains the nation with the highest GDP in the world – and by far: US GDP is projected to be $13,22 trillion (or $13.220 billion) in 2007, according to this source. That’s almost as much as the economies of the next four (Japan, Germany, China, UK) combined.

The creator of this map has had the interesting idea to break down that gigantic US GDP into the GDPs of individual states, and compare those to other countries’ GDP. What follows, is this slightly misleading map – misleading, because the economies both of the US states and of the countries they are compared with are not weighted for their respective populations.

Pakistan, for example, has a GDP that’s slightly higher than Israel’s – but Pakistan has a population of about 170 million, while Israel is only 7 million people strong. The US states those economies are compared with (Arkansas and Oregon, respectively) are much closer to each other in population: 2,7 million and 3,4 million.

And yet, wile a per capita GDP might give a good indication of the average wealth of citizens, a ranking of the economies on this map does serve two interesting purposes: it shows the size of US states’ economies relative to each other (California is the biggest, Wyoming the smallest), and it links those sizes with foreign economies (which are therefore also ranked: Mexico’s and Russia’s economies are about equal size, Ireland’s is twice as big as New Zealand’s). Here’s a run-down of the 50 states, plus DC:

1. California, it is often said, would be the world’s sixth- or seventh-largest economy if it was a separate country. Actually, that would be the eighth, according to this map, as France (with a GDP of $2,15 trillion) is #8 on the aforementioned list.

2. Texas’ economy is significantly smaller, exactly half of California’s, as its GDP compares to that of Canada (#10, $1,08 trillion).

3. Florida also does well, with its GDP comparable to Asian tiger South Korea’s (#13 at $786 billion).

4. Illinois – Mexico (GDP #14 at $741 billion)

5. New Jersey – Russia (GDP #15 at $733 billion)

6. Ohio – Australia (GDP #16 at $645 billion)

7. New York – Brazil (GDP #17 at $621 billion)

8. Pennsylvania – Netherlands (GDP #18 at $613 billion)

9. Georgia – Switzerland (GDP #19 at $387 billion)

10. North Carolina – Sweden (GDP #20 at $371 billion)

11. Massachusetts – Belgium (GDP #21 at $368 billion)

12. Washington – Turkey (GDP #22 at $358 billion)

13. Virginia – Austria (GDP #24 at $309 billion)

14. Tennessee – Saudi Arabia (GDP #25 at $286 billion)

15. Missouri – Poland (GDP #26 at $265 billion)

16. Louisiana – Indonesia (GDP #27 at $264 billion)

17. Minnesota – Norway (GDP #28 at $262 billion)

18. Indiana – Denmark (GDP #29 at $256 billion)

19. Connecticut – Greece (GDP #30 at $222 billion)

20. Michigan – Argentina (GDP #31 at $210 billion)

21. Nevada – Ireland (GDP #32 at $203 billion)

22. Wisconsin – South Africa (GDP #33 at $200 billion)

23. Arizona – Thailand (GDP #34 at $197 billion)

24. Colorado – Finland (GDP #35 at $196 billion)

25. Alabama – Iran (GDP #36 at $195 billion)

26. Maryland – Hong Kong (#37 at $187 billion GDP)

27. Kentucky – Portugal (GDP #38 at $177 billion)

28. Iowa – Venezuela (GDP #39 at $148 billion)

29. Kansas – Malaysia (GDP #40 at $132 billion)

30. Arkansas – Pakistan (GDP #41 at $124 billion)

31. Oregon – Israel (GDP #42 at $122 billion)

32. South Carolina – Singapore (GDP #43 at $121 billion)

33. Nebraska – Czech Republic (GDP #44 at $119 billion)

34. New Mexico – Hungary (GDP #45 at $113 billion)

35. Mississippi – Chile (GDP #48 at $100 billion)

36. DC – New Zealand (#49 at $99 billion GDP)

37. Oklahoma – Philippines (GDP #50 at $98 billion)

38. West Virginia – Algeria (GDP #51 at $92 billion)

39. Hawaii – Nigeria (GDP #53 at $83 billion)

40. Idaho – Ukraine (GDP #54 at $81 billion)

41. Delaware – Romania (#55 at $79 billion GDP)

42. Utah – Peru (GDP #56 at $76 billion)

43. New Hampshire – Bangladesh (GDP #57 at $69 billion)

44. Maine – Morocco (GDP #59 at $57 billion)

45. Rhode Island – Vietnam (GDP #61 at $48 billion)

46. South Dakota – Croatia (GDP #66 at $37 billion)

47. Montana – Tunisia (GDP #69 at $33 billion)

48. North Dakota – Ecuador (GDP #70 at $32 billion)

49. Alaska – Belarus (GDP #73 at $29 billion)

50. Vermont – Dominican Republic (GDP #81 at $20 billion)

51. Wyoming – Uzbekistan (GDP #101 at $11 billion)

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/06/1...h-similar-gdps/

[JODO 2]

cool

t4p

[Alt name 1]

As a cajun, I find this amusing.

The population of Indonesia is about the same as the entire US

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

New Jersey == Russia made me LOL. Weren't they a superpower back in the day?

[Alex+R 0]

I love that Minnesota = Norway, since most of us are of Norwegian (or Swedish) descent. (I'm half Norwegian.) We really have recreated "Norway in the North." And I'm sure Rey would love that NY = Brazil.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Gooooo Oregon!!

[SMOKE 1,426]

Gooooo Oregon!!

pretty cool jen is a filipina coming to OK (Philippines on the map)

[mawilson 2,133]

Gooooo Oregon!!

[Ban Hammer 13,364]

Gooooo Oregon!!

[JODO 2]

SO THIS ISCHRISTMAS

[Marc and Olga 0]

Someone with too muich time on their hands? =O

it is a neat idea though!

[Saddle Bronc 124]

I guess IA must be a totally chopfrack state as it was equated to Venezuela (misruled right now, and for maybe next five years, by chopfrack Chavez).

[MR2nice 0]

This is cool!

[Don_Joy's Prince 0]

Gooooo Oregon!!

Hey!.... Go get your own state. OK Gooooo Washington,

[slim 1,528]

New Jersey == Russia made me LOL. Weren't they a superpower back in the day?

Back in the day when Russia was a superpower, it was more than just Russia, it was the entire U.S.S.R. and included several other countries' GDPs as well. After the wall came down and then the Union broke up, military spending for the Russian Federation was (and still continues to be) significanlty less than what it was during Soviet times. The money simply dried up.

Details of Russian military spending aren't 100% accurate, but the U.S. spent around $249 Billion on defense in 1996 and Russia spent only about $19 Billion when in 1987 the Soviet Union spent about $257 Billion. So, the "superpower" Russkies were spending more then than we are now. Additionally, the manpower that was from other countries after the breakup got to go home. There was no longer a "Red Army" only a "Russian Army" and it was significantly smaller and less well-equipped.

The superpower status, although directly related to GDP, has more to do with military spending coupled with GDP as a whole. For example, the U.S. only spends roughly 4% of it's GDP on military spending whereas a country like Russia now spends about 3-4% as well. However, the GDP of the U.S. is drastically higher than that of the Russian Federation so thusly the defense budgets is significantly more as well.

The whole Cold War was more about military spending than military capability and readiness. Star Wars and the Space Race and everything else that pitted us against them boied down to one thing in the end: Money. We didn't beat the Soviets at the Cold War, we outspent them. Carlos Mencia has the whole joke about the Russians going to space with a pencil because an ink pen wouldn't work in zero gravity. The U.S. didn't stop at that, they wanted to use ink so they spent millions of dollars developing a pen that would work. Kind of the same deal with the whole "superpowers." (The Space Pen story is only a myth, but it illustrates the spending story nicely.)

So even if New Jersey wanted to, they still couldn't become a superpower!

Just an interesting aside about military and GDP - China has more people in their military than we have in our whole country. However, we spend more money on our military than a large number of nations GDPs so therefore we retain the "superpower" status while they do not. (But they're catching up!)