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How big is your state’s economy? Sometimes numbers alone can’t tell a compelling story. If I told you Texas’ GDP was about $1.7 trillion, well, OK. That sounds like a lot. But to add a little context, that’s roughly equivalent to the GDP of Canada.
To visualize the size of each state’s economy, AEI’s Carpe Diem blog found a country with a similar GDP and paired them on this map.
What is GDP?
Gross domestic product, or GDP, is the monetary measure of the total market value of all goods and services produced in a specific time period.
Carpe Diem’s map used figures from 2017. California’s twin country was the United Kingdom. We mentioned Texas and Canada. For New York , it was South Korea. Florida-Indonesia, Illinois-Netherlands, Pennsylvania-Saudi Arabia, Ohio-Argentina, New Jersey-Taiwan, Georgia-Sweden and North Carolina-Poland round out the top 10.
All 50 states with equal population
While we’re redrawing the United States map, take a look at Neil Freeman’s version. He redrew the map as 50 states with equal population. Freeman went on a renaming spree, leaving us with states named for mountain ranges (Adirondack and Blue Ridge), rivers (Susquehanna and Willimantic), ecological regions (Tidewater and Firelands), bodies of water (Tampa Bay and Canaveral), songs (Temecula), cities (Chicago, Houston, and Newark), plants (Tule) and people (King).
You can get a closer look at the map here, or order a print for your wall here.
