Sovereign and dependent territory rows of the World Bank “GDP per capita (current US$)” indicator (top 30 by most recent year). Values in USD, rounded to integers. Aggregates (region.id === “NA”) excluded. Use caution comparing across years due to inflation.
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How to use this chart
Play/Pause starts and stops the year-by-year animation, the year slider jumps to any year, and the speed selector (0.5×, 1×, 2×) changes playback speed. Each year shows the top 12 entries out of the 30 held in the dataset.
About this ranking
About this metric. “GDP per Capita by Country (Time Series)” reformats data published by the World Bank (World Bank indicator code NY.GDP.PCAP.CD). Values are expressed in USD.
What to watch. Watch the Gulf states crash the rich-country club in the 1970s as oil prices spike, then swing with every boom and bust since. Ireland’s improbably steep climb in the late 2010s — a statistical artefact of multinational relocations — is the other landmark.
Caveats. Aggregate rows (regions, income groups) are excluded from this ranking, though the same indicator is available at aggregate level on the World Bank site. For comparisons that control for price-level differences, the PPP variant (NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD) is preferable.
Trends in the data
Ireland’s take-off is the steepest in the table. It went from 707 dollars in 1960 to 112,895 in 2024, a 159.68× increase that moved it from 18th to 4th. In 1960 it was third from bottom among these 30, alongside Singapore at 428 dollars and Hong Kong at 427. Much of that gradient, however, comes from multinationals relocating headquarters functions and inflating measured GDP. Living standards did not rise 160-fold.
Singapore climbed from the same low base, from 428 dollars to 6th place in 2024 (19th in 1960). Bermuda rose from 1,715 to 142,855 dollars, 83.30×, from 7th to 2nd, and Luxembourg from 2,261 to 137,782 dollars, 60.94×, holding 3rd. Falling the other way are Canada (2nd → 20th), Sweden (4th → 17th), Israel (9th → 21st), the United Kingdom (11th → 23rd), Finland (14th → 24th) and Australia (6th → 15th).
The gap between top and bottom widened dramatically in absolute terms. In 1960 first-placed United States (3,000 dollars) and last-placed Hong Kong (427) differed by 2,573 dollars, a ratio of 7.0. In 2024 first-placed Monaco (288,001) and last-placed Finland (53,150) differ by 234,851 dollars, a ratio of 5.4. The ratio actually narrowed, while the absolute gap grew 91-fold — comparing 65 years in nominal dollars inflates the difference automatically.
Coverage is worth checking too. There are 20 countries with values in 1960, 25 in 1981, 29 in 2003 and 24 in 2024. The “leader” in 1960 simply means the highest of the twenty with values that year. Monaco appears from the 1970s, and by 1981 it was already at 44,157 dollars, far ahead of second-placed Qatar at 29,505. A city-state of fewer than 40,000 people topping the table is a structural feature of this indicator. Note also that the top-30 cut by latest value excludes China, India and Japan — large in total GDP, but not per head.
Trivia quiz
What method compares GDP across countries after adjusting for differences in price levels?
Purchasing power parity (PPP), which reflects local living standards better than market exchange rates. (Source)
GDP per capita is an average, so what does it fail to show?
The distribution of income within a country; a high average can hide large inequality (measured separately by e.g. the Gini coefficient). (Source)
What term describes resource-dependent economies that can become lopsided despite high per-capita GDP?
The "resource curse", one reason small oil-producing states can post extremely high GDP per capita. (Source)