Richest Countries in the World 1500-2022 | GDP PPP per Capita

In this video we compare the richest countries by GDP PPP per capita from 1500 to 2022.
It includes kingdoms, empires, republics, federations, states and autonomous regions.
This video will take you through a historical journey where you will witness the rise and fall of different empires and economies while passing through key historical events, such as the Great Depression, WW1, WW2, Cold War, and many other events that shaped our world today.

Source: Angus Maddison Project - The World Economy: Historical Statistics.
World Bank, IMF, UN, Louis Johnston and Samuel H.Williamson, SCMP, CNBC,
St.Louis Fed.

Countries included in the video:
Republic of Venice, Habsburg Netherlands, Holy Roman Empire, Kalmar Union, Kingdom of England, Kingdom of France, Habsburg Spain, Ming Dynasty, Mamluk Egypt, Kingdom of Poland, Ottoman Empire, Egypt Eyalet, Kingdom of Sweden, Denmark-Norway, Kingdom of Portugal, New Spain, Poland-Lithuania, Dutch Republic, Mughal Empire, Tokugawa Shogunate, Viceroyalty of Peru, Kingdom of Portugal, Qing Dynasty, Maratha Empire, Dutch Cape Colony, Great Britain, United States, French First Republic, Argentina, United Kingdom, French Empire, Prussia, Cape Colony, Netherlands, Uruguay, Sweden-Norway, Denmark, France, German Confederation, Two Sicilies, Austrian Empire, Canada, Ireland, Hong Kong, Venezuela, Belgium, Greece, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Kingdom of Italy, Austria-Hungary, German Empire, Chile, Sweden, Norway, Weimar Republic, Estonia, Austria, Nazi Germany, Finland, Japan, France, Italy, West Germany, Qatar, Kuwait, Emirates, Luxembourg, Iceland, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Bahrain, Monaco, Oman, Liechtenstein, Bahamas, Singapore, Aruba, Germany, San Marino, Macau, Andorra, Bermuda, Brunei, Taiwan.
WW1, WW2

[sim]

If you read all the data, you can see a few big trends - first trade: the Dutch republic was on top for centuries. Then the industrial revolution came, the UK and the USA where on top, then oil was found in the middle east and the Arab nations where on top, and after that you got tax havens where the super rich would go to, to not pay any taxes.

[mcf-]

The Republic of Venice was kicking asses for centuries but that's kind of known.
I'm more bewildered by how unfairly Sicily is portrayed nowadays as I had no clue how powerful it has been for centuries.

[tytoalba]

Ahh yes the time when Southern Italy was richer

[Karinna]

I am uruguayan. I didn't know that Uruguay did so well for sooo many years. The world change so much from one decade to another one.

[brucehanna]

Pretty amazing that the US has at least 50x the population of most of these nations and still has one of the highest per capital GDP rankings in the world.

[helixator]

1835: Australia enters the chat
1873: Australia takes top spot

World: who? 🤔

[danielcreatd]

An inportant fact to note, especially with older data, is that a significant part of a nations production used to consist of peasants producing goods for their own consumption which isn't calculated in the stastics.

[QuantumBraced]

How the heck do we have economic measurements this accurate from the 1500s? PPP controls for cost of living based on a large basket of goods. Was there an IMF to measure this for every country in 1550?

[pollutingpenguin]

It’s quite impressive that a small country like Denmark, without any natural resources or tax havens has managed to be in the top 10 richest countries in the world for over 500 years.

[winstongutual]

in 2010 and so on, small countries DOMINATED this

[jamesz]

props to republic of venice/dutch and sicily for stay up there for so long

[cssaf]

It's interesting how New Spain (Mexico) was always at the top as a Spanish colony, even higher than Spain sometimes

[corne]

The clear winner of this video is the Netherlands. They have been on top for 220 years. For another 200 years they have been in the top 3 and 60 years in the top 10. They have been out of the top 10 just for 20 years at the end but that is just because of the small city states. Even the UK and venice couldnt come close to these numbers. A wonderful result for the Dutch.

[petercriscuola]

Im from argentina. We were rich, now we are trash.
Its sad to see what politicians have done to our countru.

[frockon]

at some point the dutch were so rich, that they started competing with themselves lol

[andrewjordan]

I had no idea that the Kingdom of Sicily (later the Two Sicilies) had such high per capita income for much of the eighteenth century and part of the nineteenth. Italian unification seems to have been a bit of a downer. Can anyone explain this for me?

[irondwarf]

The impressive part for the US after 1990 is that it stays in the running with a population bigger than a cruise ship.

[seoxsun]

just realized that sicily was rich in the past from this video. i couldnt have imagined that because i heard that southern italy is relatively poor than the northern part of italy.

[alexandracruz]

My country Venezuela was one of the richest in the world. So sad what's happening now 😢

[HolyRomanEmpireMapping]

Well it's amazing to see that Maratha Empire despite having a Population of More Than 150 Million People (Even more than the Population of Modern day Russia), was the 12th Richest nation entity in the world in 1750s in terms of Per Capita Income, having more Per Capita than Poland and China and was comparable to Denmark. It's Crazy to think that India and Denmark used to have similar Per Capita income, But now Denmark has a per capita which is nearly 15 Times that of India. If British Colonization might not had happened, India under Maratha Empire could have expanded more and could have undergone Industrialization and could had been a global economic superpower and the Empire could had been survived atleast till 1920s. But that never happened.😢