The Cable
The Cable goes inside the foreign policy machine, from Foggy Bottom to Turtle Bay, the White House to Embassy Row.

Infographic: Here’s How the Global GDP Is Divvied Up

Spoiler alert: The United States gets the biggest slice of the pie.

By , a diplomacy and national security reporter at Foreign Policy.
crop-gdp
crop-gdp

The World Bank this month released new numbers on the state of the world economy, and the numbers tell an interesting story.

The World Bank this month released new numbers on the state of the world economy, and the numbers tell an interesting story.

The United States still dominates the global economy, accounting for nearly a quarter of the world’s GDP, which the World Bank estimates to be $74.1 trillion in total. For all the talk of China overtaking the United States as the world’s economic juggernaut, Asia’s economic giant lags 10 percentage points behind — 14.84 percent of the world’s economy compared with the United States’ 24.32 percent.

Since China overtook Japan as number two in the world in 2011, Japan’s slice of the global GDP has fallen to 5.91 percent the world’s GDP.

For the non-number junkies out there, the data and market research gurus over at cost information website HowMuch.net put together a helpful diagram using the new numbers to show just who has what slice of the pie in the global economy:

Screen Shot 2015-08-10 at 11.44.56 AM

Screen Shot 2015-08-10 at 11.44.56 AM

The infographic shows 40 of the world’s largest economies, according to World Bank data from the year 2015, the latest available. The Asian economic bloc of countries accounts for over a third of global GDP, 33.84 percent, representing the largest chunk of the world’s economy. North America comes in at second with 27.95 percent of global GDP, and Europe third at 21.37 percent.

Emerging economies, despite the hype, still account for just a small sliver of the pie. India accounts for 2.83 percent of the world economy, Brazil 2.39 percent, and Nigeria 0.65 percent. As the experts who created the graph point out, the “rest of the world” section (155 countries in all) adds up to roughly the same size as the gap between the United States and China’s share of the world GDP.

Update Feb. 24, 2017, 1:32 p.m. ET: This post was updated to include the World Bank’s estimated dollar amount of the global GDP.

Image credit: HowMuch Cost Information Website / https://howmuch.net/

Robbie Gramer is a diplomacy and national security reporter at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @RobbieGramer

More from Foreign Policy

A photo illustration shows Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden posing on pedestals atop the bipolar world order, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and Russian President Vladamir Putin standing below on a gridded floor.
A photo illustration shows Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden posing on pedestals atop the bipolar world order, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and Russian President Vladamir Putin standing below on a gridded floor.

No, the World Is Not Multipolar

The idea of emerging power centers is popular but wrong—and could lead to serious policy mistakes.

A view from the cockpit shows backlit control panels and two pilots inside a KC-130J aerial refueler en route from Williamtown to Darwin as the sun sets on the horizon.
A view from the cockpit shows backlit control panels and two pilots inside a KC-130J aerial refueler en route from Williamtown to Darwin as the sun sets on the horizon.

America Prepares for a Pacific War With China It Doesn’t Want

Embedded with U.S. forces in the Pacific, I saw the dilemmas of deterrence firsthand.

The Chinese flag is raised during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics at Beijing National Stadium on Feb. 4, 2022.
The Chinese flag is raised during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics at Beijing National Stadium on Feb. 4, 2022.

America Can’t Stop China’s Rise

And it should stop trying.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky looks on prior a meeting with European Union leaders in Mariinsky Palace, in Kyiv, on June 16, 2022.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky looks on prior a meeting with European Union leaders in Mariinsky Palace, in Kyiv, on June 16, 2022.

The Morality of Ukraine’s War Is Very Murky

The ethical calculations are less clear than you might think.