About this chart race
In 1960 the richest country per head was the United States, at about $3,000 a person. Oil ended that quickly. Kuwait took first place in 1962, and through the 1970s the lead passed between Monaco, the United Arab Emirates and, in 1980, Brunei at just over $58,000 a person — more than twenty times the American figure of two decades earlier.
Since 1983 the top of this chart has not changed hands once. Monaco has led for more than forty consecutive years and reached $288,002 per person in 2024, roughly three and a half times the United States. Behind it sit Liechtenstein, Bermuda, Luxembourg, Ireland, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands — a list made up almost entirely of micro-states and financial centres rather than large economies.
That is the honest lesson of this race: per-capita output rewards being small and specialised. A country of forty thousand people hosting banks, or half a million hosting multinational headquarters, will always outrank a country of three hundred million doing everything.
Two things to keep in mind. These are nominal figures in current US dollars, so exchange-rate swings move the bars as well as real growth. And GDP per capita measures output produced inside a country, not what households actually earn — Ireland's figure in particular is lifted by the profits of foreign multinationals booked there, which never reach Irish wages.
This animated ranking shows how gdp per capita (current us$) changed across 35 series between 1960 and 2024. The bars re-order themselves as the years advance, so overtakes are visible as they happen rather than hidden inside a table. Use the list on the left to choose exactly who competes, drag the slider to jump to any year, or open the table view to read the underlying numbers.
As of 2024, Monaco leads with 288,002 US$.
Included in this race
Monaco, Liechtenstein, Bermuda, Luxembourg, Norway, Ireland, Qatar, Switzerland, Cayman Islands, Singapore, Isle of Man, Macao SAR, China, United States, Iceland, San Marino, Channel Islands, Faroe Islands, Denmark, Australia, Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Germany, Kuwait, Israel, Finland, United Arab Emirates, New Zealand, Japan, Andorra, France, Bahamas, The, Saudi Arabia.
Source
Data from World Bank — World Development Indicators. Check the stated period and methodology. Animated transitions between source observations are visual interpolation, not additional measurements.
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