We Are The World

This startling map reveals that the UK and Ireland generate more wealth than 43 other countries put together. Are you still concerned about the economy?

When the UK overtook France in 2014 it became the fifth best performing economy in the world. To put that in perspective, each county of the UK contributes as much as an entire country. Comparing gross domestic product (GDP) – a measure of the value of goods and services produced – Cornwall matches Jamaica, North Yorkshire lines up against Cameroon and Essex outperforms Croatia.

Make it so: UK & Ireland regions and the countries that generate a similar GDP (2013)

It might be home to less than 0.9% of the world’s population, but the UK is punching well above its weight, contributing 2.3% of the global economy.

At a regional level the comparisons are even more impressive: the North West matches Greece’s flailing £154,785 million economy and the 4.5 million residents of the East Midlands are responsible for a greater output than the entire 157 million population of Bangladesh.

Big cities, bright lights

But where the strength of the UK’s economy really shines is when you look at the GDP of individual cities. Sheffield has an economy the size of Ghana, a country that covers an area more than 640 times greater than the City of Steel. The one million residents of Birmingham produce a combined output equal to that of 21 million Angolans and Glasgow has met its match… in Bulgaria.

Urban takeover: UK cities renamed as countries with a similar GDP (2014)

London, the UK’s most economically powerful city, has a GDP roughly the size of Turkey’s. If the capital was an independent country, its £534,821 million GDP would make it the 18th largest economy in the world, just below the Netherlands.

There are surprising matches across the UK: Edinburgh is on a par with Latvia, Newcastle is similar to Serbia and the Portsmouth-Southampton metropolitan area is economic equals with Ethiopia.

The results in full

The rankings in the tables below are based on nominal GDP which is a measure of output alone and does not take into account the cost of living and inflation in each country.