Delaware's GDP equals Ecuador's

Carl Størmer shows an interesting map where the GDP's of the various states are equated to countries. In this older map little Delaware has the equivalent GDP of Romania. I feel bad for New Hampshire which has the GDP of Bangladesh (but I change my tune later down this post)

Source: The York Group International, Inc.

I think people in this country still do not understand what a high standard of living we have and what benefits we have. I know I appreciate it. Perhaps the map will help.

A better and perhaps more accurate comparison can be found at wikipedia - Comparison between U.S. states and countries nominal GDP or PPP. There is also the difference between exchange rate actual currency GDP and Purchasing Power Parity. For example the dollar has an exchange rate with some country but that might not be equivalent to its purchasing power.

Source: The Honest Hypocrite, Data from World Bank and US Bureau of Economic Analysis

I have updated the map with data from 2005 using the GDP corrected for purchasing power parity. Now Delaware falls between Ecuador and Guatemala. There are other interesting equivalences. Texas has almost the GDP of Mexico, a country it was once a part of. California has a higher GDP-PPP than Russia, perhaps that state could have won the Cold War all on its own, perhaps it did in the person of Ronald Reagan. The states with the lowest GDP are North Dakota and Vermont, but they still beat countries like Estonia and Lebanon.

I know these comparisons are mostly specious since they are not corrected for population, or land area, but it makes an interesting map, nonetheless.