How Large Are U.S. State Economies? This Map Shows California's Edge Over France, And More

The fact that the United States' $18 trillion economy is the largest in the world in terms of GDP is no secret. However, did you know that the state of California was the sixth largest economy in the world, with a larger GDP than France, India, Italy or Brazi?. Impressive, right?

But, how do the rest of the country's state economies compare to other national economies?

The American Enterprise Institute recently published a map comparing the gross domestic product (GDP) of U.S. states with that of whole countries — using 2015 state-level GDP data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and country-level GDP data from the International Monetary Fund.

Source: AEI

California’s 2015 GDP is comparable to that of France, $2.46 trillion for the former versus $2.42 trillion for the latter. However, in terms of GDP per capita, California has a very large lead, as its population of roughly 38.8 million is much smaller than France’s 66.03 million. In terms of workforce, the difference becomes smaller, but still very significant: 19 million workers for California, compared to 25 million workers for France.

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Second in line is Texas, with a 2015 GDP of $1.59 trillion, which would have made it the tenth largest economy in the world, ahead of countries like Canada ($1.55 trillion), Mexico or Switzerland. And, again, Canada needed 50 percent more workers (18 million) to reach the same production level as Texas.

New York trails Texas from close behind, with a GDP of $1.44 trillion, comparable to South Korea’s $1.38 trillion.

Interestingly, these three states combined produced $5.5 trillion in economic output in 2015. This figure surpasses the GDP of Japan ($4.1 trillion), only falling behind China and the United States as a whole — including these three states.

Source: AEI

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Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no interest in any of the securities or entities mentioned above.