In order to illustrate the
enormous size of the American
economy, political scientist Earl Fry calculated the gross products of each of the 50 states and renamed them based on countries of similar economic size. On the map, referenced in a link below, California becomes France, Tennessee becomes
Saudi Arabia and
Texas becomes
Canada. Dr. Fry, a professor of
Political Science at
Brigham State University, poses that most states have an economic scale of nations and they should be treated that way.
The size of the American economy is staggering. The amount by which the US economy grew in the 90s is larger than any economy in the world except Japan*. In fact, according the the Council of State Governments "If each state in the United States were treated as a sovereign nation, every U.S. state would rank in the top 33 percent of all countries in the world, in terms of Gross Domestic Product."**
Here are the comparisons based on World Bank Gross National Income, 2000, and US Department of Commerce Gross State Products, 2000:
Alabama – Iran
Alaska - Belarus
Arizona - Thailand
Arkansas - Pakistan
California - France
Colorado - Finland
District of Columbia - New Zealand
Delaware - Romania
Florida - Republic of Korea
Georgia - Switzerland
Hawaii - Nigeria
Idaho - Ukraine
Illinois - Mexico
Indiana - Denmark
Iowa - Venezuela
Kansas - Malaysia
Kentucky - Portugal
Louisiana - Indonesia
Maine - Morocco
Maryland - Hong Kong
Massachusetts - Belgium
Michigan - Argentina
Minnesota - Norway
Mississippi - Chile
Missouri - Poland
Montana - Tunisia
Nebraska - Czech Republic
Nevada - Republic of Ireland
New Hampshire - Bangladesh
New Jersey - Russia
New Mexico - Hungary
New York - Brazil
North Carolina - Sweden
North Dakota - Ecuador
Ohio - Australia
Oklahoma - Philippines
Oregon - Israel
Pennsylvania - Netherlands
Rhode Island - Vietnam
South Carolina - Singapore
South Dakota - Croatia
Tennessee - Saudi Arabia
Texas - Canada
Utah - Peru
Vermont - Dominican Republic
Virginia - Austria
Washington - Turkey
West Virginia - Algeria
Wisconsin - South Africa
Wyoming - Uzbekistan
http://www.unitednorthamerica.org/worldus.htm
*Globe and Mail, Saturday, March 8th, 2003, Drew Fagan
**"Western States Trade Globally", Council of State Governments, John Mountjoy.