Rank Territory Value11 Norway 64012 Switzerland 63221 Portugal 60623 China 60053 India 55060 Ireland 52661 Japan 50065 Iraq 49986 Turkey 496106 Egypt 475

TOP TEN AND OTHER NOTABLE RATES OF WEALTH PER PERSON IN YEAR 1500

Technical notes

© Copyright 2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan)

US$ of Gross Domestic Product in purchasing power parity per person in 1500*

Rank Territory Value1 Italy 11002 Belgium 8753 Netherlands 7614 Denmark 7385 France 7276 United Kingdom 7147 Austria 7078 Sweden 6959 Germany 68810 Spain 661

Land area

Wealth Year 1500

www.worldmapper.org

Produced by the SASI group (Sheffield) and Mark Newman (Michigan)

“Slaves captured in raids and war grew in importance as a commodity ... Kola nuts ... were also important, as were the dyestuffsof northern Nigeria. All these goods were highly prized in and around the Mediterranean basin.”

In the year 1500 European territorieswere some of the wealthiest on earth,when measured by the Gross DomesticProduct (GDP) per person.

The regions with the largest totalGDPs were Eastern Asia and SouthernAsia. These were also the mostpopulous regions at that time.

The regions with the lowest GDP in1500 were Central Africa andSoutheastern Africa. These regionsalso had the lowest GDP per person.In 2002 these regions enjoyed aneven smaller proportion of the worldtotal GDP expressed in purchasingpower parity dollars than they didin 1500.

• Data are from Angus Maddison’s 2003 The WorldEconomy.

• Gross Domestic Product is measured in PurchasingPower Parity (PPP) US$, thus PPP US$1 has thesame purchasing power in every territory. ThisPPP is in 1990 prices.

• See website for further information.

Territory size shows the proportion of worldwide GrossDomestic Product equalised in US$ in purchasing powerparity that was produced there in 1500.

Map 160

Richard Effland, 2003

TIMELINE OF WORLD WEALTH

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