Unexpectedly Intriguing!
20 January 2006

Today, Political Calculations is repeating it's previous exercise in examining the GDP rankings of the nations surrounding the Pacific Ocean, but updating the data for 2004! One unique wrinkle - instead of adding the U.S. and Canada as whole nations, we're only looking at the equivalent GSP and GDP data for the Pacific Ocean bordering states of Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington, as well as the Canadian province of British Columbia!

The data in the table below has been adjusted for each country's Purchasing Power Parity, which takes into account how much an individual can buy within a country along with the currency exchange rate between the individual country's currency and the U.S. dollar. This allows for a more direct comparison between countries with different rates of exchange in their currencies, as well as what their currencies are capable of buying within their own countries. As a final note, the individual U.S. state GSP data has not been adjusted this way.

2004 Pacific Rim GDP-PPP, Population and GDP-PPP per Capita
Country/Territory GDP-PPP ($USD billions) Population (2004 est.) GDP-PPP per Capita
Australia 611.7 19913144 30718
Bangladesh 275.7 141340476 1951
Bhutan 2.9 2185569 1327
Brunei 6.8 365251 18732
Cambodia 27.0 13363421 2020
Canada - British Columbia 124.7 4201867 29672
Chile 169.1 15823957 10686
China 7262.0 1298847624 5591
Colombia 281.1 42310775 6644
Cook Islands 0.1 21200 4953
Costa Rica 38.0 3956507 9597
East Timor 0.4 1019252 363
Ecuador 49.5 13212742 3747
El Salvador 32.4 6587541 4911
Fiji 5.2 880874 5873
French Polynesia 4.6 266339 17196
Guam 3.2 166090 19267
Guatemala 59.5 14280596 4164
Honduras 18.8 6823568 2754
Hong Kong 234.5 6855125 34208
India 3319.0 1065070607 3116
Indonesia 827.4 238452952 3470
Japan 3745.0 127333002 29411
Kiribati 0.1 100798 784
Korea, North 40.0 22697553 1762
Korea, South 925.1 48598175 19036
Laos 11.3 6068117 1859
Macau 9.1 445286 20436
Malaysia 229.3 23522482 9748
Maldives 1.3 339330 3684
Marshall Islands 0.1 57738 1992
Mexico 1006.0 104959594 9585
Micronesia, Federated States of 0.3 108155 2561
Nauru 0.1 12809 4684
New Caledonia 3.2 213679 14779
New Zealand 92.5 3993817 23163
Niue 0.0 2156 3525
Northern Mariana Islands 0.9 78252 11501
Pakistan 347.3 159196336 2182
Palau 0.2 20016 8693
Panama 20.6 3000463 6856
Papua New Guinea 12.0 5420280 2212
Peru 155.3 27544305 5638
Philippines 430.6 86241697 4993
Russia 1408.0 143782338 9793
Samoa 1.0 177714 5627
Singapore 120.9 4353893 27768
Solomon Islands 0.8 523617 1528
Sri Lanka 80.6 19905165 4048
Taiwan 576.2 22749838 25328
Thailand 524.8 64965523 8078
Tokelau 0.0 1405 1068
Tonga 0.2 110237 2213
Tuvalu 0.0 11468 1064
US - Alaska 34.0 655435 51874
US - California 1550.8 35893799 43205
US - Hawaii 50.3 1262840 39848
US - Oregon 128.1 3594586 35637
US - Washington 261.5 6203788 42152
Vanuatu 0.6 202609 2863
Vietnam 227.2 82689518 2748
Wallis and Futuna 0.1 15880 3778
Pacific Rim (All) 25348.6 3902999170 6495

The Richest and Poorest Nations Around the Pacific Rim

The west coast U.S. states of Alaska, California, Washington, Hawaii and Oregon top the list, followed by Hong Kong, Australia, the Canadian province of British Columbia, Japan and Singapore. If the U.S. and Canada are taken as whole nations, the top of the list as measured by GDP-PPP per Capita would be the United States ($40099), Hong Kong, Canada ($31469), Australia, Japan and Singapore.

The poorest nation in the Pacific Rim is the recently independent East Timor, followed by tiny nation of Kiribati (formerly, and perhaps better known as the Gilbert Islands.)

Data Sources:

GDP-PPP Data: 2004 GDP-PPP Data for Individual Nations
U.S. Individual GSP Data: 2004 GSP for U.S. States
Canada Individual Province GDP Data: Statistics Canada Releases Revised 2001-2004 GDP Data (170KB PDF document). Note: The GDP data for British Columbia was presented in raw 2004 Canadian dollars. It was converted to GDP-PPP (in 2004 US dollars) in the table above by multiplying the raw GDP figure by 79.29%, which was derived by dividing the GDP-PPP figure for Canada ($1.023 trillion USD) by the nation's raw GDP ($1.290 trillion CAD).
Population Data: July 2004 Population Estimates
GSP and GDP per Capita: This data was calculated by simply dividing the published GDP-PPP data by each nation's, state's or territory's population estimate for July 2004.

Previously on Political Calculations

2004 Economic and Population Data

2002 Economic and Population Data

About Political Calculations

Welcome to the blogosphere's toolchest! Here, unlike other blogs dedicated to analyzing current events, we create easy-to-use, simple tools to do the math related to them so you can get in on the action too! If you would like to learn more about these tools, or if you would like to contribute ideas to develop for this blog, please e-mail us at:

ironman at politicalcalculations

Thanks in advance!

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