

Comparing Chinese provinces with countries

All the parities in China

Which countries match the GDP, population and exports of Chinese provinces?

China is now the world's second-biggest economy, but some of its provinces by themselves would rank fairly high in the global league. Our map shows the nearest equivalent country. For example, Guangdong's GDP (at market exchange rates) is almost as big as Indonesia's; the output of both Jiangsu and Shandong exceeds Switzerland's. Some provinces may exaggerate their output: the sum of their reported GDPs is 10% higher than the national total. But over time the latter has consistently been revised up, suggesting that any overstatement is modest.

What about other economic yardsticks? Guangdong exports as much as South Korea, Jiangsu as much as Taiwan. Shanghai's GDP per person is as high as Saudi Arabia's (at purchasing-power parity), though still well below that in China's special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macau. At the other extreme, the poorest province, Guizhou, has an income per head close to that of India. Note that these figures use the same PPP conversion rate for the whole of China, but prices are likely to be lower in poorer provinces than in richer ones, slightly reducing regional inequality.

Correction, February 25th: The original figure given for Hong Kong's exports included re-exports. This has been changed to refer to domestic exports only.


Also see our other "country equivalents" interactive maps:
US states as countries
Indian states and territories as countries
Brazilian states as countries

Readers' comments



Given the impressive GDP and population figures of some Chinese cities/regions how many/which of them deserve to be upgraded to a 'state' status and given a seat at the United Nations General Assembly ? By the way, I can think of quite a few cases where the present UN members should be downgraded to some sort of 'provisional' or 'candidate' status.



Whatever your opinion may be about the political status of Taiwan you are getting into political designations of what constitutes a country. I don't want to get into historical debates here but, for the sake of comparison, you would get heated arguments on both sides of the issue by raising identical question about, say, Scotland, Vatican, Chechnia, Tatarstan, Abkhasia, etc. etc.


‘The best government in the world is SWITZERLAND ’

For its population of some 7.6 m, about the size of a hong kong or some mid-size city in china or india, switzerland has a fine government no doubt. but when you blow it up for the population size of india or china, you may be in for a big surprise. in spite of all the faults reported, governments of china and india should be given more credit than given.


Oh come on The Economist, the province is called"INNER　MONGOLIA" but not MONGOLIA !!! MONGOLIA is another country!!!


whenao wrote:
Feb 24th 2011 5:29 GMT

Hebei might have the same size of Colombia... but they'll never be as cool as we are.

Of course we can't. We don't grow or trade weeds...

OnTheContrary wrote:
Feb 24th 2011 7:18 GMT

I think we should also include the U.S. numbers since its government owes China so much, and the people won't have problems having them included in these data.


@ChinaLoong wrote: Feb 26th 2011 3:19 GMT
“Wester,Euper,our chinese do not live to please you,we have our life,we do not really care about your views.
You must know that China will stand up and go to NO.1 in the world in few years,that is OK!
We have J-20,DF-21,096...,we have the largest pop.This year,7000000 youngs will gruate from their universitys and colleges.
I am sorry for my English,I have passed CET-4 three years ago in my college life.”

You say you are sorry for your English.

I say I am sorry for you being a troll pretending to be from China.

No countryman of any nation who identified his nationality here would post such garbage (I don't mean your delibrately garbaled English) as you did, especially for the very first time here under your new "pen name".


@onthecontrary- are you kidding me? Include arunchal Pradesh in China's GDP.? Last I checked those were independent countirs-not part of China. arunchal Pradesh is part of India. Are you delirious? Do you really think Bhutan and Nepal would want to be a part of China? Try sticking to China proper if you don't mind. Not that China's number won't be exaggerated. we (the international community) all know CCP' s numbers are exaggerated. The real question is why do you think other nation's GDP's should be included for China?


So what? Per person is still very low.

Canada fits into the middle of China, while Denmark is in a province as big as western Europe, yeah I would say they deliberately belittle Canada. Oops, I forgot Greenland.

forest school wrote:
I see Tibet lagging everywhere.

Care to compare with nearby provinces and countries?


Can anyone explain to me the following?:

With only 5 provinces with GDP/head over $15k (in itself a pitiful level) and these provinces having combined population less than $60m, how is it that annual vehicle sales are expected to grow in China from 16m to 18m by 2012 and then flatten off? [http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/12/car_sales]. Won't the market for new car sales will be saturated far sooner than the car manufacturers are predicting?


I think it is time for the western journalists to stop comparing India and China because China's poorest province is on the Indian per capita level.

Dr. Music

Guangdong exports as much as South Korea, but Qinghai exports as much as Rwanda. Residents of Guangdong have lots of electricity, but most residents of Qinghai probably don't even have refrigerators.

China's biggest problem is internal inequality. But as long as that internal market continues to expand, the government should be able to keep a lid on social unrest. But inevitably the country will democratize.


China's economic development is perhaps one of humanity's greatest achievements. Or is it? Could you show us the situation 30 years ago? That comparison would be very interesting. After over 30 years of 10-12% (or more) growth most of China's provinces--in terms of GDP per capita--still reads like the honor role of struggling economies in the developing world. China, you've got a long, long way to go. Good luck. Hope the planet's resources hold out.

vieri 32

very beautiful, in category of exports, jiangsu`s nearest equivalent is TAIWAN. i found "compaing chinese provinces with countries" in title.