Talk:List of countries by largest historical GDP

Except for the fact that the US has had the largest gdp from 1960 until this very day, the list in the article is unreliable. In 1960, the Soviet Union had the 2nd largest GDP. It remained so until around 1980, when it was overtaken by Japan. Later, Germany, France, UK, Italy all overtook the Soviet Union between 1987-1991. . At the end of 1991, the Soviet Union disintegrated and Russia plummeted economically until 1998, falling behind even Canada, Brazil, Spain, India. In 1999 it started to climb back,quickly however. West Germany had the 3rd largest economy in the world in 1960, followed by the UK, France, and Japan. However, by 1965 Japan overtook these European countries. France also overtook the UK in the 1960s, then it extended its lead over the UK in the 1970s, but in the 1990s the UK caught up with France again. Currently, they are neck to neck (their nominal GDP largely depends on EUR-GBP currency fluctuations). Conclusion: This list should be revised or deleted altogether. Perhaps, the dataset after 2000 are realistic in nominal terms, but not in Purchase Power Parity terms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.248.238.2 (talk) 09:05, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Germany in the 1960s
This list is somehow not logic. Germany does not appear in the 1960 but is suddenly number 2 in 1970. There is some mistake here. Please correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.1.3.59 (talk) 13:51, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I was going to make a similar comment. This data cannot be accurate. 59.167.126.21 (talk) 00:19, 8 January 2011 (UTC)


 * its because germany was in ruin after the war until the german miracle happened--Karesu12340 (talk) 00:52, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Deletion Request
Firstly, please wait until the article is somewhat finished before rushing to slap a deletion nomination, irrespective of the merits your case might be. Aside from creating an edit lock, which hinders me finishing the article, I don't think anybody can determine that it duplicates or content forks another article when it is in a half-complete state. And now that I have to respond to this speedy deletion request ("Adding a hangon without explaining why the article should be kept will not keep the article from being deleted") prevents me further from completing the article, or at least bring it to a state where it can be accurately and fairly evaluated as being a candidate for speedy deletion.

I was hoping to go to bed right now, but now I have to respond to your request and demonstrate the article is both unique and worthwhile. Very well.

You are claiming on my talk page that "the page you created covers a topic on which we already have a page - Lists of countries by GDP. Because of the duplication, your article has been tagged for speedy deletion."

I would argue that the two articles are different.
 * List of ten largest countries by GDP shows past rankings of GDP for the ten largest countries
 * Lists of countries by GDP is a disambiguation page.

As the list below shows, there are many different articles which list countries GDP, using different measures, different sources and for different regions. There is no article that comprehensively lists changes in relative rankings in the past 50 years, and by extension illustrates the rise and fall of countries in the global economy, like this article. If you think the chart belongs in another existing article that can be considered, but it would more likely make that article cumbersome. Kransky (talk) 13:57, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

year links
I think it would be nice if the years at each line are links to List of countries by GDP in 199x. Alinor (talk) 12:44, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
 * It looks like there are no such articles. There is only List of countries by past GDP (nominal) and I have proposed there that it can be updated with the data from the history of the List of countries by GDP taken on Dec2005 (for 2004), Dec2006 (for 2007), etc. Alinor (talk) 12:59, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Netherlands
I'm pretty sure the GDP of the Netherlands was larger than the GDP of Sweden in 1960. Does somebody know more about this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.249.49.241 (talk) 16:11, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Soviet Union
Why is the Soviet Union never ranked in the top 10 even during the years when it existed and should have been ranked as such? Someone seems to have made very many mistakes compiling this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.112.36.236 (talk) 17:36, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah that is weird. That's why I put the following sentence in bold: "Due to data limitations, the table excludes data pertaining to the Soviet Union (before 1990) and Germany (before 1971), which may cause lesser ranked countries to be included in the top ten.". Munci (talk) 19:56, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

USSR??
This article really contradicts other pages which suggest the soviet economy was much larger. The article 'Economy of the Soviet Union' says in 1989, the GDP of the Soviet Union was $2,500 Billion while the GDP of the United States was $4,862 Billion yet it's not even listed in the top ten —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.86.81.80 (talk) 04:14, 15 November 2010 (UTC)


 * As it says in the bolded sentence in the intro, it's somehow 'due to data limitations'. If the data is really that limited - which I doubt considering I have seen data from the time the Soviet Union was still around which did show such data - it doesn't make for a good article after all. Munci (talk) 00:12, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Soviet Union's GDP was $771 Billion USD in 1989 according to UN's data. How was it $2,500 Billion USD? o.O (talk) 02:32, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Well... For example, you can calculate it from current Russia GDP (PPP) which is almost 4,000 billions (more than 3, anyway), Russia GDP growth from 1990 (from 0 to approx. 20%, depends on the source you will try to use) and a fraction of Russia in USSR (60 to 80%). And take into consideration inflation rate. That will definitely be much more than 771 billion...14.146.26.102 (talk) 16:09, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

1980 to 2010 GDP (PPP) figures for IMF
Is it ok if I add those figures?

cchow2 (talk) 23:12, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi Cchow, I think adding PPP figures should be fine - it would add value to the article by encompassing alternative reliable measures of an economy's size.
 * However before more graphs are added I think the presentation of existing graphs needs to be tidied. These graphs are becoming cluttered and are difficult to read.  For example, I do not think it is helpful to mix a PPP and a nominal GDP graph together.  Perhaps you may wish to reinsert your graph separately.
 * Also please do not use different font sizes in the same sentence! Kransky (talk) 09:09, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Kransky, I will take into your account all your suggestions and re-add the improved tables. I will separate PPP and nominal figures then.

cchow2 (talk) 01:08, 29 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Great...look forward to seeing the changes. Kransky (talk) 07:44, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Where is Russia in this picture??


Russia has higher gdp nominal than india and canada in 2011, who ever made this was completely biased. Russia is also higher than brazil, italy, france and uk in ppp in 2011 imf said.http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2012/02/weodata/weorept.aspx?sy=2000&ey=2017&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=223%2C924%2C922%2C132%2C134%2C534%2C536%2C158%2C112%2C111%2C542&s=PPPSH&grp=0&a=&pr.x=38&pr.y=3

--Venajaguardian (talk) 01:32, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Size split?
Split - Article is over 100kB, and should be split starting with "International Monetary Fund statistics of the ten largest economies". Thoughts? Suggestions?--Jax 0677 (talk) 19:24, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Deletion would be a better option. This article isn't here to serve readers, it's just a gigantic collection of unreadable tables and flags. bobrayner (talk) 12:41, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
 * 2nded. If the article does remain then you are quite correctly splitting 1 article per measure. We will need a summary of what the measures mean here. But try nominating for deletion first. Op47 (talk) 21:28, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Eurocentric/ Western centric article..
What about world history prior to the 1970s when Asia and the Middle East had powerful economies? Angus Maddison is a prominent economic historian who made groundbreaking research on historical GDP of world economies. He starts with the 1st century when China, India and Persia where mighty economies. Where is that data? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.229.101.198 (talk) 20:01, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Because there is lack of data before 1970, and also, because these countries never produced GDP figures. Maddison's research consists of guesstimates involving production for self consumption and assumptions regarding the subsistence level and the economic performance of pre-industrial societies regarding the subsistence level. Therefore, including this data here doesn't make any sense at all. In fact, as a graduate student of economics, I am against the utilization of such estimates and their mix with data generated from actual national accounting (such as the data presented in this article). Complains about Eurocentrism miss the point that GDP figures were invented in the west and only make sense for market economies such as those developed in Europe and North America since the 19th century. Predominantly agricultural subsistence economies such as the Asian economies for the past three thousand years up to the 20th century Japan, did not have significant GDP since output wasn't sold in the market. Also, the claims that China, India and "Persia" were powerful economies doesn't make sense in an ancient context since they weren't integrated into each other, the modern globalized world that unifies each national market into each other allows for the dollarization of the output of each different country and such dollarization is not possible for the middle ages or ancient times. Only after 1960 that we have accurate data made available in a economically integrated planet, allowing for meaningful comparison of economic size between countries. Asia and the Middle East were not economically powerful in the sense of being economically integrated with the western world and being very powerful.--201.21.110.241 (talk) 18:44, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

"Incremental nominal gdp"
What is that?

Looking in the IMF source given there's no such thing.

Searching for "incremental gdp" or variants, gives Wikipedia and Wikipedia mirrors only.

In a few instances where the words "incremental" and "gdp" are used in proximity together the former more or less just means "change in" the latter, which is not what the table says.

Also, "nominal" should be just changed to "converted at market exchange rates".  Volunteer Marek  10:11, 17 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see. It's the difference between the beginning and end of a 5 year period as calculated by some Wikipedian. You do realize that even if it makes sense to compare nominal GDPs of countries at a point time by converting by the market exchange rate, it doesn't make sense do make this kind of comparison across time because of changes in prices? The information is useless and misleading. Removing as offtopic and WP:SYNTH.  Volunteer Marek   10:25, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Even older data
This list since 1980 is of limited value since US is #1 and the others change little.

However, right now I am reading a biography of Teddy Roosevelt and I would be interested to find the top GDP countries at that time. I would hope to find that information here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fulldecent (talk • contribs) 21:44, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

This article was vandalized today
Could You help to revert it manually? Propositum (talk) 13:05, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

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Top 15 or Top 20
I wish it is Top 15 or Top 20, more detailed than top 10. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ferctus (talk • contribs) 23:59, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

By average values of GDP (nominal)

 * 1) What does "highlighter" mean?  The Webster's online dictionary only gives one meaning, which does not fit.
 * 2) In one year (1980?), the tenth place has an entry  about a template instead of the name of a country. Kdammers (talk) 18:51, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

U.S. percentages
" List of countries by largest historical GDP]" How is 21.42% lower than 1.8%? How is 14.2% not lower than 21.42%? I don't understand these two sentences taken as a whole (maybe -24.67%?). Kdammers (talk) 18:55, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

1995 - Japan overtook US?
Please verify source data. Linked source shows the following data for 1995:

US 7,639,749,000,000

JP 5,545,564,892,181

BDS2006 (talk) 16:29, 30 October 2023 (UTC)


 * It's nominal GDP. It's meaningless. Only billionaires and statisticians care about nominal GDP.
 * 80.41.186.151 (talk) 12:55, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
 * That is neither true nor a proper answer. Nominal GDP is a major metric and has pros and cons vs. its PPP version (as do all single numerical metrics of such complex systems, which are nonetheless useful). Regardless, it is what this article is about and this claim of fact does not appear to agree with the sources - or any others I can find - which are closer to those given above. Nor can I find sources discussing the Japanese economy outgrowing the American. It also self-contradicts.
 * If there is such a source, it is not clear how it can be described as ‘the’ neutral mainstream source. If the Japanese GDP being higher it is due to a flawed average of three listings (though it is not possible for this to happen with any sort of mean unless true for at least one of the listings too).
 * If it was based on some composite calculation by an editor, this would be new research (at best) and against Wikipedia guidelines. It also seems to be a very new change. 2600:1017:B83A:E6C7:C05B:17D5:5E57:DA96 (talk) 17:58, 14 April 2024 (UTC)