... let’s look at how the economies of the world’s largest metros match up to national economies. We based this comparison on gross domestic product at purchasing power parity, or GDP-PPP. The data for metros is for 2015 and comes from the Brookings Institution’s Redefining Global Citiesreport, which draws on data from Moody’s Analytics and Oxford Economics; the data for nations is also for 2015 from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators.
The map below, by Taylor Blake of the Martin Prosperity Institute (MPI), tells the story.
Some highlights of the comparison:
- Tokyo, the world’s largest metro economy with $1.6 trillion in GDP-PPP, is just slightly smaller than all of South Korea. Were it a nation, Tokyo would rank as the 15th largest economy in the world.
- New York City’s $1.5 trillion GDP places it among the world’s twenty largest economies, just a tick under those of Spain and Canada.
- Los Angeles’ $928 billion GDP is bit smaller than Australia’s, with $1.1 trillion.
- Seoul ($903 billion) has a bigger economy than Malaysia ($817 billion).
- London’s $831 billion GDP makes its economic activity on par with the Netherlands ($840 billion).
- Paris, with $819 billion in GDP, has a bigger economy than South Africa, $726 billion.
- The $810 billion economy of Shanghai outranks that of the Philippines, with $744 billion.