I think sometimes we forget our position in the world. I come from essentially a rich island and live in a relatively rich semi-developed country. Both countries somewhat punch above there real weight on the global scene. Both Britain and South Korea are in the top 20 economies in the world but their respective size suggest otherwise. I feel that when making comparisons with the US, it is much more important to compare it to the EU rather than to the UK alone.
This map is not particularly new but does highlight the economic clout that the US actually has. I think it is from 2006. Some notable states would California being equivalent to France and Canada being Texas. California would be one of the richest states in the world if it was independent. Only Germany, UK, Japan, India and China are richer. This is evening more worrying when you consider a former Austria body builder has the same economic capabilities as the whole of France.
I'm sure this would be similar if it was GDP but it actually population. For as much publicity Tibet gets it only has the same amount of people as Jamaica. I know the region is extremely mountainous but compared to the rest of China it's sparsely populated. The UK is compared to Hubei. This map really shows the potential China has to become a super power because if it's per capita GDP was to rise from around $2500 to around $11,000 (Poland) then it would become easily the largest economy in the world.
This last map was released by the Dutch health authorities in Sept 2007 to show patients how lucky they are. I'm sure you can debate the actual figures. I mean it doesn't mention anything about cost or quality of health care. The best countries may seem a bit of a surprise. In order Cuba, Belarus, Belgium, Greece, Russia, Georgia, Italy, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Lithuania. The UK is about mid way in the list but numerically there is little difference between the top 30 countries. Africa unsurprisingly has a complete monopoly on the depths of the ranking.
The amount of former soviet states at the top of the ranks shouldn't be all that surprising. Generally under communist or socialist rule countries have a large state health care system.
For me, maps don't show facts but merely trends. The data as with any data can be argued but the general trends they show are eye opening. I have recently been reading a lot of Korean economic papers. Academics here tend to constantly compare themselves to Japan, China and US, maybe this leads to a results driven society. The first two maps though show that maybe countries like the UK and Korea should look at ourselves in comparison to more realistic targets like EU countries or US states.
I've always wondered what would happen if the US disbanded and became a union like that of the EU and the same to China, Russia, Japan and India. What kind of world would we live in then?
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