List of countries by GDP (PPP) in the nineteenth century

These are lists of countries in the nineteenth century by their estimated real gross domestic product (GDP) in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), the value of all final goods and services produced within a country/region in a given year. GDP dollar (international dollar) estimates here are derived from PPP estimates.

Methodology

Due to the absence of sufficient data for nearly all economies until the 20th century, earlier GDP is only roughly estimated. In a first step, economic historians try to reconstruct the GDP per capita of a given political or geographical entity from the meagre evidence. This value is then multiplied by the estimated population size, another determinant for which as a rule only little ancient data is available.

A key notion in the whole process is that of subsistence, the income level which is necessary for sustaining one's life. Since pre-industrial societies, by modern standards, were characterized by a very low degree of urbanization and a large majority of people working in the agricultural sector, economic historians prefer to express income in cereal units. To achieve comparability over space and time, these numbers are then converted into monetary units such as International Dollars, a third step which leaves a relatively wide margin of interpretation.

The formula is: GDP (PPP) = GDP per capita (PPP) × population size

It should be stressed that, historically speaking, population size is a far more important multiplier in the equation. This is because, in contrast to industrial economies, the average income ceiling of premodern agrarian societies was quite low everywhere, possibly not higher than twice the subsistence level. ^[1] Therefore, the total GDP as given below primarily reflects the respective historical population size, and is much less indicative of contemporary living standards than, for example, estimations of past GDP per capita.

According to 20th-century macroeconomist Paul Bairoch, a pioneer in historical economic analysis,

it is obvious that by itself the volume of total GNP has no important significance, and that the volume of GNP is not by itself the expression of the economic strength of a nation.

Rather, Bairoch advocates a formula combining GNP per capita and total GNP to provide a better measure of the economic performance of national economies. ^[2]

The total GDPs of the British Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire were difficult to calculate due to lack of information from some localities in Maddison's work. There is no information to speculate the GDP of many colonies and national subdivisions. In the case of Austria-Hungary, the data given is about the modern territory of the Austria and Hungary, while the majority of the population and economy lay outside today's borders. There were data about future countries that were once part of the Empire. Using that, the Czechoslovakia's GDP was split in the rate of 2:1 to Austria and Hungary respectively because of the location of each part in the former empire and the population rate between Czech and Slovakian territories of 2:1. Data about the GDP of the territory of the future Yugoslavian kingdom in 1890s existed, so the proportion of the population among Croatia-Slavonia, Serbia and the other constituents of the future kingdom were used to deduce the GDP of each place. Information about Galician GDP was deduced using the proportion of the people it had in what would become Poland. Information about other parts were missing, so the GDP of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was actually bigger than shown, as well as the British Empire.

Lists

List by the Contours of the World Economy, 1–2030 AD (Partial forecasted estimates for 1879–1880) and Maddison Project ^{[3] [4] [5]}

Rank	Country	GDP (millions of 1880 Int$)
	World	at least 1,500,000
1	British Empire subdivisions   India – 155,063 United Kingdom - 149,596 Australia (colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania) - 14,345   Canada - 10,894 Egypt - 6,204 Burma - 4,777 Ceylon - 2,985 New Zealand - 2,428 Cape Colony - 2,066   Malaya, including the Straits Settlements and the protected states of Selangor, Perak, Negeri Sembilan, Pahang, Johor, Kedah, Kelantan, Perlis and Terengganu; and Sarawak - 1,223   Gold Coast - 1,037 Jamaica - 553 Hong Kong - 209 Singapore (alone) - 148 Natal - ?? Rhodesia - ?? Mauritius - ?? Bechuanaland - ?? Trinidad and Tobago - ?? Basutoland - ?? Mashonaland - ?? Matabeleland - ?? Sierra Leone - ?? British Honduras - ?? Barbados - ?? Zululand - ?? Malta - ?? British Guiana - ?? Gambia - ?? British East Africa - ??   North Borneo - ?? Cyprus - ?? Zanzibar - ?? British Somaliland - ?? Rest of the Empire - ??	351,527
2	United States	211,678
3	Qing dynasty	205,309
4	German Empire subdivisions Germany proper (without Polish territories) - 115,581 German Poland - 10,591 Kamerun - ?? Togoland - ?? German South West Africa - ?? German New Guinea - ??	126,172 [o 1]
5	French Empire subdivisions France - 92,906 French Indochina (today's Vietnam only) - 10,894 Algeria - 3,873 Tunisia - 1,099 French Sudan - ?? Malagasy Protectorate - ?? Rest of the Empire - ??	108,772 [o 2]
6	Russian Empire subdivisions Russia proper (without Congress Poland and Finland) - 92,662 Congress Poland - 10,545 Finland - 3,092	108,771
7	Austro-Hungarian Empire subdivisions Cisleithania (excluding Galicia and Lodomeria) - 23,845 Transleithania (excluding Croatia-Slavonia) - 22,519 Galicia and Lodomeria - 8,209 Croatia-Slavonia - 1,879 Bosnia and Herzegovina - 1,195	c. 63,000
8	Italy	49,686
9	Netherlands subdivisions Dutch East Indies - 25,316   Netherlands - 15,070 Rest of the Empire - ??	40,386 [o 3]
10	Empire of Japan	37,016
11	Spanish Empire subdivisions Spain - 28,823 Philippines - 4,160 Cuba - 2,416 Rest of the Empire - ??	35,399 [o 4]
12	Belgium	20,443
13	Ottoman Empire	18,749
14	Sweden-Norway subdivisions   Sweden - 8,308   Norway - 3,323	11,631
15	Empire of Brazil	11,001
16	Mexico	10,860
17	Switzerland	8,766
18	Persia	7,749
19	Argentina	7,265
20	Portuguese Empire subdivisions Portugal - 5,425 Mozambique - ?? Angola - ?? Portuguese India - ?? Portuguese Timor - ?? Azores - ?? Guinea -?? Madeira - ?? Cape Verde - ?? Macau - ??	c. 7,000
21	Romania	6,553
22	Denmark	5,462
23	Siam	5,229
24	Chile	4,781
25	Ethiopia	c. 4,000
26	Korea	c. 4,000
27	Morocco	3,182
28	Bulgaria	c. 3,000
29	Colombia	2,379
30	Venezuela	2,172
31	Greece	2,640
32	Nepal	1,504
33	Orange Free State	c. 2,000
34	Serbia	c. 1,708
35	Peru	1,650
36	Uruguay	1,594
37	Transvaal	c. 1,000
38	Bolivia	c. 1,000
39	Guatemala	c. 1,000
40	Luxembourg	c. 700
41	Ecuador	589
42	El Salvador	c. 500
43	Montenegro	c. 500
44	Honduras	c. 500
45	Nicaragua	c. 400
46	Costa Rica	c. 400
47	Liberia	c. 300
48	Haiti	c. 250
49	Monaco	c. 50
50	San Marino	c. 30

Notes

1. (excluding colonies)
2. (excluding territories with uncertain GDP)
3. (excluding territories with uncertain GDP)
4. (excluding territories with uncertain GDP)

References

1. Milanovic 2006, p. 460, 468:

   In conclusion, the fact that the average incomes in the most developed agricultural economies like Augustan Rome and Basil's Byzantium were about twice or less than the subsistence minimum might indicate that the pre-industrial societies were unlikely to ever exceed that ceiling. This in turn has implications for our assessment of the average standard of living in other, non-Western, pre-industrial economies like those of China, India, pre-Columbian Americas, and Africa....A further implication of these calculations is that a realistic maximum income that could be envisaged for the pre-industrial societies might be a bit more than twice the subsistence minimum, or around $PPP 1000 (at 1990 international prices).

2. Bairoch 1976, p. 282
3. "Contours of the World Economy, 1–2030 AD". Angus Maddison. Retrieved 9 May 2017.^{[ permanent dead link ]}
4. GGDC - Maddison Project
5. David Rumsey

External links

• Angus Maddison — Historical statistics
• Walter Scheidel — Papers on ancient economy and demography