19 of the 20 countries with the lowest estimated GDP per capita in the world in 2024 are located in Sub-Saharan Africa. South Sudan is believed to have a GDP per capita of just 351.02 U.S. dollars - for reference, Luxembourg has the highest GDP per capita in the world, at almost 130,000 U.S. dollars, which is around 400 times larger than that of Burundi (U.S. GDP per capita is over 250 times higher than Burundi's). Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa Many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa have been among the most impoverished in the world for over a century, due to lacking nutritional and sanitation infrastructures, persistent conflict, and political instability. These issues are also being exacerbated by climate change, where African nations are some of the most vulnerable in the world, as well as the population boom that will place over the 21st century. Of course, the entire population of Sub-Saharan Africa does not live in poverty, and countries in the southern part of the continent, as well as oil-producing states around the Gulf of Guinea, do have some pockets of significant wealth (especially in urban areas). However, while GDP per capita may be higher in these countries, wealth distribution is often very skewed, and GDP per capita figures are not representative of average living standards across the population. Outside of Africa Yemen is the only country outside of Africa to feature on the list, due to decades of civil war and instability. Yemen lags very far behind some of its neighboring Arab states, some of whom rank among the richest in the world due to their much larger energy sectors. Additionally, the IMF does not make estimates for Afghanistan, which would also likely feature on this list.
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The average for 2023 based on 183 countries was 26826 U.S. dollars. The highest value was in Luxembourg: 130491 U.S. dollars and the lowest value was in Burundi: 829 U.S. dollars. The indicator is available from 1990 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.
In 2025, Luxembourg was the country with the highest gross domestic product per capita in the world. Of the 20 listed countries, 13 are in Europe and five are in Asia, alongside the U.S. and Australia. There are no African or Latin American countries among the top 20. Correlation with high living standards While GDP is a useful indicator for measuring the size or strength of an economy, GDP per capita is much more reflective of living standards. For example, when compared to life expectancy or indices such as the Human Development Index or the World Happiness Report, there is a strong overlap - 14 of the 20 countries on this list are also ranked among the 20 happiest countries in 2024, and all 20 have "very high" HDIs. Misleading metrics? GDP per capita figures, however, can be misleading, and to paint a fuller picture of a country's living standards then one must look at multiple metrics. GDP per capita figures can be skewed by inequalities in wealth distribution, and in countries such as those in the Middle East, a relatively large share of the population lives in poverty while a smaller number live affluent lifestyles.
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This dataset provides values for GDP PER CAPITA PPP reported in several countries. The data includes current values, previous releases, historical highs and record lows, release frequency, reported unit and currency.
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The average for 2023 based on 30 countries was 51145 U.S. dollars. The highest value was in Luxembourg: 130491 U.S. dollars and the lowest value was in Albania: 17992 U.S. dollars. The indicator is available from 1990 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.
The GDP per capita overall increased in all seven G7 countries since 2000 except *****. There, it fluctuated over the period, being only slightly higher in 2024 than in 2000. The ************* had the highest GDP per capita of the countries at over ****** dollars in terms of purchasing-power-parity (PPP). ******* had the second highest GDP per capita.
Out of all 50 states, New York had the highest per-capita real gross domestic product (GDP) in 2024, at 92,341 U.S. dollars, followed closely by Massachusetts. Mississippi had the lowest per-capita real GDP, at 41,603 U.S. dollars. While not a state, the District of Columbia had a per capita GDP of more than 210,780 U.S. dollars. What is real GDP? A country’s real GDP is a measure that shows the value of the goods and services produced by an economy and is adjusted for inflation. The real GDP of a country helps economists to see the health of a country’s economy and its standard of living. Downturns in GDP growth can indicate financial difficulties, such as the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, when the U.S. GDP decreased by 2.5 percent. The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on U.S. GDP, shrinking the economy 2.8 percent. The U.S. economy rebounded in 2021, however, growing by nearly six percent. Why real GDP per capita matters Real GDP per capita takes the GDP of a country, state, or metropolitan area and divides it by the number of people in that area. Some argue that per-capita GDP is more important than the GDP of a country, as it is a good indicator of whether or not the country’s population is getting wealthier, thus increasing the standard of living in that area. The best measure of standard of living when comparing across countries is thought to be GDP per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) which uses the prices of specific goods to compare the absolute purchasing power of a countries currency.
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This dataset provides values for GDP PER CAPITA reported in several countries. The data includes current values, previous releases, historical highs and record lows, release frequency, reported unit and currency.
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The Gross Domestic Product per capita in Ivory Coast was last recorded at 2390.75 US dollars in 2024. The GDP per Capita in Ivory Coast is equivalent to 19 percent of the world's average. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - Ivory Coast GDP per capita - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.
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The average for 2024 based on 7 countries was 57316 U.S. dollars. The highest value was in the USA: 75492 U.S. dollars and the lowest value was in Japan: 46097 U.S. dollars. The indicator is available from 1990 to 2024. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.
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The “richness index” represents the level of economical wellbeing a country certain area in 2010. Regions with higher income per capita and low poverty rate and more access to market are wealthier and are therefore better able to prepare for and respond to adversity. The index results from the second cluster of the Principal Component Analysis preformed among 9 potential variables. The analysis identifies four dominant variables, namely “GDPppp per capita”, “agriculture share GDP per agriculture sector worker”, “poverty rate” and “market accessibility”, assigning weights of 0.33, 0.26, 0.25 and 0.16, respectively. Before to perform the analysis all variables were log transformed (except the “agriculture share GDP per agriculture sector worker”) to shorten the extreme variation and then were score-standardized (converted to distribution with average of 0 and standard deviation of 1; inverse method was applied for the “poverty rate” and “market accessibility”) in order to be comparable. The 0.5 arc-minute grid total GDPppp is based on the night time light satellite imagery of NOAA (see Ghosh, T., Powell, R., Elvidge, C. D., Baugh, K. E., Sutton, P. C., & Anderson, S. (2010).Shedding light on the global distribution of economic activity. The Open Geography Journal (3), 148-161) and adjusted to national total as recorded by International Monetary Fund for 2010. The “GDPppp per capita” was calculated dividing the total GDPppp by the population in each pixel. Further, a focal statistic ran to determine mean values within 10 km. This had a smoothing effect and represents some of the extended influence of intense economic activity for the local people. Country based data for “agriculture share GDP per agriculture sector worker” were calculated from GDPppp (data from International Monetary Fund) fraction from agriculture activity (measured by World Bank) divided by the number of worker in the agriculture sector (data from World Bank). The tabular data represents the average of the period 2008-2012 and were linked by country unit to the national boundaries shapefile (FAO/GAUL) and then converted into raster format (resolution 0.5 arc-minute). The first administrative level data for the “poverty rate” were estimated by NOAA for 2003 using nighttime lights satellite imagery. Tabular data were linked by first administrative unit to the first administrative boundaries shapefile (FAO/GAUL) and then converted into raster format (resolution 0.5 arc-minute). The 0.5 arc-minute grid “market accessibility” measures the travel distance in minutes to large cities (with population greater than 50,000 people). This dataset was developed by the European Commission and the World Bank to represent access to markets, schools, hospitals, etc.. The dataset capture the connectivity and the concentration of economic activity (in 2000). Markets may be important for a variety of reasons, including their abilities to spread risk and increase incomes. Markets are a means of linking people both spatially and over time. That is, they allow shocks (and risks) to be spread over wider areas. In particular, markets should make households less vulnerable to (localized) covariate shocks. This dataset has been produced in the framework of the “Climate change predictions in Sub-Saharan Africa: impacts and adaptations (ClimAfrica)” project, Work Package 4 (WP4). More information on ClimAfrica project is provided in the Supplemental Information section of this metadata.
Data publication: 2014-05-15
Supplemental Information:
ClimAfrica was an international project funded by European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme (FP7) for the period 2010-2014. The ClimAfrica consortium was formed by 18 institutions, 9 from Europe, 8 from Africa, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations (FAO).
ClimAfrica was conceived to respond to the urgent international need for the most appropriate and up-to-date tools and methodologies to better understand and predict climate change, assess its impact on African ecosystems and population, and develop the correct adaptation strategies. Africa is probably the most vulnerable continent to climate change and climate variability and shows diverse range of agro-ecological and geographical features. Thus the impacts of climate change can be very high and can greatly differ across the continent, and even within countries.
The project focused on the following specific objectives:
Develop improved climate predictions on seasonal to decadal climatic scales, especially relevant to SSA;
Assess climate impacts in key sectors of SSA livelihood and economy, especially water resources and agriculture;
Evaluate the vulnerability of ecosystems and civil population to inter-annual variations and longer trends (10 years) in climate;
Suggest and analyse new suited adaptation strategies, focused on local needs;
Develop a new concept of 10 years monitoring and forecasting warning system, useful for food security, risk management and civil protection in SSA;
Analyse the economic impacts of climate change on agriculture and water resources in SSA and the cost-effectiveness of potential adaptation measures.
The work of ClimAfrica project was broken down into the following work packages (WPs) closely connected. All the activities described in WP1, WP2, WP3, WP4, WP5 consider the domain of the entire South Sahara Africa region. Only WP6 has a country specific (watershed) spatial scale where models validation and detailed processes analysis are carried out.
Contact points:
Metadata Contact: FAO-Data
Resource Contact: Selvaraju Ramasamy
Resource constraints:
copyright
Online resources:
Project deliverable D4.1 - Scenarios of major production systems in Africa
Climafrica Website - Climate Change Predictions In Sub-Saharan Africa: Impacts And Adaptations
Tabular dataset containing descriptors like min, max, median of GDP per capita for many countries from the 1960s up to 2019, combined with average yearly sunshine hours extrapolated from readings in some cities of those countries. Metadata according to the W3C's CSV on Web Recommendation, using the Dublin Core vocabulary. {"references": ["https://data.world/makeovermonday/2019w44", "https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD (Accessed on 10.04.2021))", "https://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/10m-cultural-vectors/10m-admin-0-countries/ (v4.1.0)"]}
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The average for 2024 based on 19 countries was 19884 U.S. dollars. The highest value was in Puerto Rico: 44125 U.S. dollars and the lowest value was in Haiti: 2801 U.S. dollars. The indicator is available from 1990 to 2024. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.
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This dataset contains 25 columns which are: 1. Country: Corresponding country. 2. Poverty headcount ratio at $2.15 a day (2017 PPP) (% of population): Poverty in country. 3. Life expectancy at birth, total (years): Expected life from birth. 4. Population, total: Population of Country. 5. Population growth (annual %): Population growth each year. 6. Net migration: is the difference between the number of immigrants and the number of emigrants divided by the population. 7. Human Capital Index (HCI) (scale 0-1): is an annual measurement prepared by the World Bank. HCI measures which countries are best in mobilizing their human capital, the economic and professional potential of their citizens. The index measures how much capital each country loses through lack of education and health. 8. GDP (current US$)current US$constant US$current LCUconstant LCU: Gross domestic product is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced in a specific time period by a country or countries. 9. GDP per capita (current US$)current US$constant US$current LCUconstant LCU: the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes (less subsidies) not included in the valuation of output, divided by mid-year population. 10. GDP growth (annual %): The annual average rate of change of the gross domestic product (GDP) at market prices based on constant local currency, for a given national economy, during a specified period of time. 11. Unemployment, total (% of total labor force) (modeled ILO estimate) 12. Inflation, consumer prices (annual %) 13. Personal remittances, received (% of GDP) 14. CO2 emissions (metric tons per capita) 15. Forest area (% of land area) 16. Access to electricity (% of population) 17. Annual freshwater withdrawals, total (% of internal resources) 18. Electricity production from renewable sources, excluding hydroelectric (% of total) 19. People using safely managed sanitation services (% of population) 20. Intentional homicides (per 100,000 people) 21. Central government debt, total (% of GDP) 22. Statistical performance indicators (SPI): Overall score (scale 0-100) 23. Individuals using the Internet (% of population) 24. Proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments (%) 25. Foreign direct investment, net inflows (% of GDP): is when an investor becomes a significant or lasting investor in a business or corporation in a foreign country, which can be a boost to the global economy.
Economic
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$5.50
For most of the 20th century, Ireland stood out as one of the poorest countries in Western Europe, not experience the same post-war boom in prosperity that was felt by virtually all other countries in the region. At the onset of the 1973-1975 Recession, Ireland's GDP per capita was less than 60 percent of GDP per capita in the European Union and less than a quarter of GDP per capita in the U.S. Catching up in the 1980s By the 1980s, a wave of foreign investment saw Ireland's export sector grow exponentially, and between 1975 and 1990, Ireland had the second-fastest growth of exports in the world (behind Japan). Additionally, as Ireland joined the European Communities in 1973, it became more integrated into the European economy; before 1973, around three-quarters of Ireland's exports went to the United Kingdom, but this fell to one-third by the 1990s. Ireland's period of industrialization was relatively short in comparison to its neighbors, as it transitioned from an agriculture-based economy to a producer of high-tech products and services. Ireland's low tax rate and other incentives also attracted many American tech companies in the 1980s, such as Apple, Intel, and Microsoft, who were keen on establishing a presence in the European Union. The Celtic Tiger Named after the Four Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan), which experienced rapid economic growth in the 1970s and 1980s, the period of prosperity between the 1990s and 2000s in Ireland has been dubbed the "Celtic Tiger." Over this time, Ireland's GDP per capita grew to exceed the average in the EU by 10 percent in 2000, and it would eventually surpass that of the U.S. in 2003. Ireland was severely impacted by the financial crisis of 2008 due to the instability of its property sector and extensive lending by banks, and it was the first European economy to go into recession. By the late 2010s, most sectors of the economy had returned to pre-recession levels, and today, Ireland's GDP per capita remains among the top in the world, second in the EU only to Luxembourg.
In 1950, at the end of the recovery period that followed the Second World War, GDP per capita across the Eastern Bloc varied greatly by country. Czechoslovakia, the most industrialized country in the Bloc after East Germany, had a GDP per capita that was 69 percent of the rate across Western European** countries. In contrast, Romania's GDP per capita was less than a quarter of the Western European average in 1950. 1950-1989 Generally speaking, Eastern European economies grew faster and made gains on those of the west (not including Mediterranean region) in the 1950s and 1960s, however, a series of recessions and increasing debts meant that this gap widened in the 1970s and 1980s. By 1989, as communism in Europe came to an end, the difference between overall GDP per capita in the Eastern and Western Blocs returned to a similar rate as in 1950, although it varied by country. The Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, three of the larger economies of those given, had a lower share of western GDP per capita in 1989 than in 1950, while the smaller economies of the Balkans saw an increase. 1989-2000 Between 1989 and 2000, the European Union's GDP per capita grew faster than in the former Eastern Bloc countries. However, the end of communism did negatively impact EU economies in the early 1990s. Poland was the only Eastern Bloc country to make gains on the west in these years, although this was more to do with its poor economy in the 1980s. The former-Soviet states, in particular, saw GDP per capita drop below one-quarter of the European Union's rate over this decade, as post-Soviet economic recovery did not realistically begin until the late 1990s.
These are the results obtained by conducting the experiment "Average Height of 19-year-old Males and Females and GDP per Capita in 2019 for 164 Countries". The CSV file contains the raw data produced by processing, filtering and merging the input datasets. There are two rows for each of the 164 countries. In both rows, the country name, country code and GDP per capita are given. However, one row contains the average height of 19-year-old males (indicated by the value 'Boys' in the 'Sex' column) whereas the other displays the average height of 19-year-old females (indicated by the value 'Girls'). Furthermore, there are two PNG files which display the regression plots for the average height of 19-year-old males and females, respectively. Note that the x-scale (for the GDP per capita) is logarithmic. {"references": ["The World Bank, GDP per capita (current US$), Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2021. Accessed on: Apr. 13, 2021. [Online] Available: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD.", "NCD Risk Factor Collaboration, Height - Evolution of adult height over time, NCD Risk Factor Collaboration, 2021. Accessed on: Apr. 18, 2021. [Online] Available: https://ncdrisc.org/data-downloads-height.html under "Country-specific data for all countries"."]}
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Zambia is simultaneously amongst the poorest and the most unequal countries in the world. In 2022, 64.3 percent of the population - about 12.6 million individuals - was living on less than US$2.15 a day. This level is not only the 6th highest in the world but it is also misaligned with the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita level. In four of the five poorer countries, GDP per capita is between one-quarter and one-half of Zambia’s GDP per capita. The remaining country is South Sudan, which is immersed in a protracted fragility and conflict situation. At the same time, consumption inequality is high, even when compared with the sub-group of highly unequal resource-rich countries. In 2022, the Gini index stood at 51.5 - significantly above the World Bank’s newly adopted high-inequality threshold of 40. This places Zambia as the country with the 4th highest inequality in the region and the 6th highest globally. Resource-rich countries with similar or higher inequality have substantially lower poverty levels.
Seychelles had the largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in Africa as of 2024. The value amounted to 21,630 U.S. dollars. Mauritius followed with around 12,330 U.S. dollars, whereas Gabon registered 8,840 U.S. dollars. GDP per capita is calculated by dividing a country’s GDP by its population, meaning that some of the largest economies are not ranked within the leading ten.
Impact of COVID-19 on North Africa’s GDP
When looking at the GDP growth rate in Africa in 2024, Libya had the largest estimated growth in Northern Africa, a value of 7.8 percent compared to the previous year. Niger and Senegal were at the top of the list with rates of 10.4 percent and 8.3 percent, respectively. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact on the economy was severe. The growth of the North African real GDP was estimated at minus 1.1 percent in 2020. However, estimations for 2022 looked much brighter, as it was set that the region would see a GDP growth of six percent, compared to four percent in 2021.
Contribution of Tourism
Various countries in Africa are dependent on tourism, contributing to the economy. In 2023, travel and tourism were estimated to contribute 182.6 billion U.S. dollars, a clear increase from 96.5 in 2020 following COVID-19. As of 2024, South Africa, Mauritius, and Egypt led tourism in the continent according to the Travel & Tourism Development Index.
This statistic shows the average inflation rate in Nicaragua from 1987 to 2024, with projections up until 2030. In 2024, the average inflation rate in Nicaragua amounted to about 4.64 percent compared to the previous year. Nicaragua's economy Nicaragua’s inflation rate has been on the decline since 2011, but it is expected to rise again in 2016. In 2011, the country's economy experienced higher than average annual growth, which most likely helped increase consumer confidence and may have correlated with a decrease in the inflation rate. In general, consumer confidence is rising because GDP per capita has also been increasing steadily and is expected to continue to do so in the future. However, living conditions of Nicaraguans are still far from ideal, and the country struggles to overcome its reputation as one of the poorest nations in the region. GDP per capita in Nicaragua remained under 2,000 U.S. dollars per capita in 2014; only a fraction of GDP for Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole, which was slightly over 10,000 U.S. dollars per capita that same year. Yet, while per capita GDP is low, the country reports average unemployment and typically, when unemployment is low, consumer confidence increases and prices rise. However, it is likely that any increase in inflation will still have a significant effect on the poor, even if GDP rises.
19 of the 20 countries with the lowest estimated GDP per capita in the world in 2024 are located in Sub-Saharan Africa. South Sudan is believed to have a GDP per capita of just 351.02 U.S. dollars - for reference, Luxembourg has the highest GDP per capita in the world, at almost 130,000 U.S. dollars, which is around 400 times larger than that of Burundi (U.S. GDP per capita is over 250 times higher than Burundi's). Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa Many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa have been among the most impoverished in the world for over a century, due to lacking nutritional and sanitation infrastructures, persistent conflict, and political instability. These issues are also being exacerbated by climate change, where African nations are some of the most vulnerable in the world, as well as the population boom that will place over the 21st century. Of course, the entire population of Sub-Saharan Africa does not live in poverty, and countries in the southern part of the continent, as well as oil-producing states around the Gulf of Guinea, do have some pockets of significant wealth (especially in urban areas). However, while GDP per capita may be higher in these countries, wealth distribution is often very skewed, and GDP per capita figures are not representative of average living standards across the population. Outside of Africa Yemen is the only country outside of Africa to feature on the list, due to decades of civil war and instability. Yemen lags very far behind some of its neighboring Arab states, some of whom rank among the richest in the world due to their much larger energy sectors. Additionally, the IMF does not make estimates for Afghanistan, which would also likely feature on this list.