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Data for 1940

Historical GDP per Capita (Maddison), 1940

1940, as GGDC’s 2023 release gives it · stored as published, never rewritten

Historical GDP per capita follows each country's output per person back to 1820, in 2011 international dollars, from the Maddison Project Database. It joins economic historians' reconstructions of old national accounts onto modern statistics, so that incomes two centuries apart can be set on one scale.

Historical GDP per Capita (Maddison), 1940 covers 58 countries. United States is highest, at 12,005; Malawi is lowest, at 686. The middle country reads 3,034. Against 1939, 57 values changed (29 up, 28 down), 3 left.

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Historical GDP per Capita (Maddison) · Data for 1940

HighestUnited States

12,005

LowestMalawi

686

Shaded by value in five groups of equal size, darkest at the better end.

01Position · derived

The table

Every country and every column of Historical GDP per Capita (Maddison), 1940, as published. GGDC ranks nobody on this measure; the position is derived here by ordering the published values. “=” marks a shared position.

Showing 25 of 58 countries · select a heading to sort

Historical GDP per Capita (Maddison), 1940: every country, as published by Maddison Project, Groningen Growth and Development Centre (GGDC).
derived
1United StatesUSANorthern America12,005
2United KingdomGBRNorthern Europe10,928
3New ZealandNZLAustralia and New Zealand10,042
4AustraliaAUSAustralia and New Zealand9,828
5SwitzerlandCHEWestern Europe9,802
6GermanyDEUWestern Europe8,612
7CanadaCANNorthern America8,557
8DenmarkDNKNorthern Europe8,155
9SwedenSWENorthern Europe7,739
10NetherlandsNLDWestern Europe7,701
11BelgiumBELWestern Europe7,272
12ArgentinaARGSouth America6,633
13FranceFRAWestern Europe6,443
14NorwayNORNorthern Europe6,437
15AustriaAUTWestern Europe6,311
16IcelandISLNorthern Europe5,235
17ChileCHLSouth America5,177
18FinlandFINNorthern Europe5,133
19ItalyITASouthern Europe5,099
20UruguayURYSouth America4,983
21JapanJPNEastern Asia4,882
22IrelandIRLNorthern Europe4,865
23VenezuelaVENSouth America4,769
24GuatemalaGTMCentral America4,371
25HungaryHUNEastern Europe4,186

02In 1940

At either end

The 5 countries at each end of the headline.

Highest

  1. 1United States12,005
  2. 2United Kingdom10,928
  3. 3New Zealand10,042
  4. 4Australia9,828
  5. 5Switzerland9,802

Lowest

  1. 58Malawi686
  2. 57Nigeria878
  3. 56Zambia1,017
  4. 55India1,093
  5. 54Romania1,583

A higher value is the better result. The middle country reads 3,034. “Shared” marks a value another country also holds.

031939 → 1940

Since 1939

  • +0 / −3countries joined / left
  • 57values changed, of 58 in both
  • 29 · 28rose · fell
  • 1unchanged

Rose most

Fell most

− Ghana− Singapore− Zimbabwe

04Caveats

Read before you use

Using the series

  • One year of the 2023 release

    Every year in this series comes from GGDC’s 2023 release, recalculated on one method, so a change from one year to the next is not a revision. It can differ from what was first published for 1940.

  • Nothing missing

    Every one of the 58 countries has every column.

05The files

Download and cite

Licence in full

What this site changed: Reshaped to one row per country, with its ISO code; no value recalculated, rescaled or rounded. In full

Licence: CC BY 4.0 · what it allows, in plain words

Cite this edition

Maddison Project, Groningen Growth and Development Centre (GGDC) (1940). Historical GDP per Capita (Maddison), 1940 [data set], describing 1940. As held by Nations Inquiry, https://nationsinquiry.com/datasets/historical-gdp-per-capita/1940

06112 held

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