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Five Biggest Economies by Continent

For each continent, guess the five countries that have the biggest economies.
2021 forecast. World Economic Outlook (April 2021 edition). More info here.
In U.S. dollars. Purchasing Power Parity method.
If a country is in two continents, we adjust the GDP accordingly
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: April 21, 2021
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First submittedFebruary 11, 2016
Times taken105,475
Average score86.7%
Rating4.97
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Africa
1.34 T
Egypt
1.12 T
Nigeria
753 B
South Africa
515 B
Algeria
295 B
Ethiopia
 
 
Asia
26.7 T
China
10.3 T
India
5.59 T
Japan
3.51 T
Indonesia
2.44 T
South Korea
Europe
4.74 T
Germany
3.33 T
Russia
3.17 T
United Kingdom
3.23 T
France
2.61 T
Italy
 
 
North America
22.7 T
United States
2.61 T
Mexico
1.98 T
Canada
209 B
Dominican Republic
159 B
Guatemala
Oceania
1.42 T
Australia
227 B
New Zealand
35.5 B
Papua New Guinea
11.1 B
Fiji
1.66 B
Solomon Islands
 
 
South America
3.33 T
Brazil
1.02 T
Argentina
781 B
Colombia
492 B
Chile
439 B
Peru
+27
Level 90
Feb 11, 2016
Almost didn't get the 4th in Asia, I thought it was going to be one of the middle eastern countries, like Saudi Arabia, Iran, or maybe Turkey.
+5
Level 49
Feb 11, 2016
You should take my quiz, World Superpowers in 2050. It preps well for this. You'll see patterns.
+1
Level 69
Apr 3, 2021
same, i was thinking of middle east and pakistan, afghanistan, turkey. surprised to see the 4th country, have seen many stories about poverty there
+3
Level 33
Jun 16, 2021
As an indonesian myself, and live mostly in island of java, our country is actually economically great, but i admit there is a big gap with the other island especially in outer isolated territory, where u probably hear that poverty news come from
+16
Level 62
Jun 16, 2021
You thought Afghanistan would be in the top 5 economies in Asia?
+2
Level 71
Apr 22, 2021
Even if it's poor, Indonesia has a huge population. Also, it seems to me that its economic growth has been pretty successful.
+1
Level 64
Feb 11, 2016
Thanks :)
+2
Level 61
Feb 19, 2016
Algeria surprised me.
+7
Level 84
Feb 19, 2016
Aside from Europe and Asia, it doesn't take much to crack the top 5 of any of these lists.
+2
Level 67
Feb 19, 2016
Other way around for me, Kalbahamut. It was easy to guess the main countries in Oceania and N. America, but the 4th and 5th nations were just me guessing countries in those continents. Whereas for Europe and Asia I got them all first time, as they're so dominant.
+9
Level 84
Feb 19, 2016
I wasn't saying anything about how easy they are to guess... just that being top 5 on any of the other continents isn't very impressive. Algeria's economy is tiny compared to Italy's or South Korea's, to say nothing of Cuba or the Solomon Islands. And, actually, I think those countries are harder to guess for that very reason. So you got my comment backwards...

just as an aside, though, the top 5 in Europe and Asia aren't *that* dominant. Saudi Arabia trails South Korea by less than 200 million. Spain trails Italy by about 500 million.

+3
Level 74
Apr 12, 2019
Using purchasing power parity generally means guessing the most populous countries. All forms of GDP measurement have problems, but PPP skews things to shrink the appearance of inequalities.
+1
Level 17
Feb 19, 2016
I guessed Algeria and got it.
+32
Level 62
Apr 18, 2017
Yes, that's how this website works.
+1
Level 40
Aug 10, 2020
I didn't quite have time to type "Algeria"! Ugh! Good quiz though.
+1
Level 17
Feb 19, 2016
I got 19/30. Some of them like Russia are really obvious.
+1
Level 63
Feb 19, 2016
I am surprised to see Angola ahead of Kenya.
+1
Level 57
Feb 19, 2016
Angola will fall back in 2015/16 with lower oil prices.
+1
Level 30
Aug 16, 2021
Angola will be more populous than Kenya by 2100
+1
Level 25
Feb 19, 2016
Im going to admit: I aced the Countries of the world quiz so I just named the biggest countries....still worked though(untimed)
+1
Level 75
Feb 19, 2016
Papua New Guinea is in Oceania, yet Indonesia is in Asia? Huh?
+4
Level 42
Feb 19, 2016
Indonesia is in considered to be part of both Asia and Oceania; however, it is usually considered to be part of Asia because its capital Jakarta is located in Asia. This is similar to Russia being counted as Europe rather than Asia due to Moscow and Turkey being counted as Asia rather than Europe due to Ankara.
+3
Level 42
Feb 19, 2016
In addition the vast majority of the populations and land areas of Indonesia and Turkey are located in Asia.
+1
Level 74
Feb 19, 2016
It's more a cultural and economic association...PNG was administered by Australia until 1975. There is no universally accepted dividing line between these regions
+3
Level 65
Nov 10, 2017
Politics, power and money tend to determine how these borders are drawn up, often with scant concern for the wishes of the indigenous peoples. There have been countless protests in Irian Jaya(West Papua) for independence, but they are always suppressed by the Indonesian military. A similar problem can be seen on Bougainville Island, which is culturally more akin to the Solomon Islands, but was made a part of Papua New Guinea so Australian mining companies could exploit it. Armed rebels took over an Australian mine there a few years back. East Timor is another example. They fought a war for independence largely ignored by Australia and the UN for 25 years. Easier to maintain the status quo, carve up the Timor Sea gas and oil reserves, and hope the problem goes away.
+2
Level 76
Feb 19, 2016
I totally blanked on Dominican Republic. I knew it, and I could think of Hispaniola, Santo Domingo, and Haiti, but the correct name just wouldn't connect to my typing fingers. Grrrr!
+1
Level 67
Feb 19, 2016
29/30. Ran out of time before I could type Nigeria.
+2
Level 43
Feb 19, 2016
needed more time!!
+1
Level 17
Feb 19, 2016
I'm surprised Germany was above Russia OG
+8
Level 63
Sep 28, 2016
Well cars are more expensive than Vodka.
+3
Level 55
May 18, 2017
I believe the UK actually has a larger economy than France by a majority of sources.
+1
Level 67
Jun 9, 2017
Algeria was like the one north african country I didn't guess...argh
+8
Level 89
Aug 25, 2017
I love that you've put together a "largest economy" quiz that includes both China and a country whose economy is 1/23,000th the size of China's.
+1
Level 54
Sep 18, 2021
That's bizarre. I never thought about it that way.
+2
Level 61
Aug 25, 2017
Egypt and Nigeria are mixed up.
+2
Level 59
Aug 25, 2017
How Nigeria is above Egypt, when the GNP is lower?
+1
Level ∞
Aug 26, 2017
Fixed the order
+2
Level 70
Aug 27, 2017
It was a little short on time, even though I knew most of the answers and hardly did any guessing…
+1
Level 59
Nov 10, 2017
I was about to guess Ethiopia but apparently, some part of my brain wanted me to believe Ethiopia was extremely poor when compared to other countries so I ignored it, completely forgetting its high population. Thanks, brain.
+1
Level 86
Nov 10, 2017
0.01 left :D
+1
Level 70
Nov 10, 2017
Would have thought that Venezuela wouldn't even be 5th in South America due to their turmoil.
+1
Level 59
Nov 26, 2017
Oil can give a lot of money, even to a country in turmoil
+1
Level 59
Nov 12, 2017
how do you make this kind of a quiz format?
+1
Level 41
Mar 3, 2018
Vamos República Dominicana.
+1
Level 44
Mar 23, 2018
lol missed an easy one.. facepalm
+1
Level 16
Aug 20, 2018
Turkey is in eu but is count as Asia
+1
Level 74
Apr 21, 2021
No, Turkey is not in the EU
+1
Level 74
Nov 20, 2018
25/30 and still missed Japan.
+1
Level 65
Mar 9, 2019
why the reset? has any country changed since last year or it was only the figures?
+1
Level 57
Mar 9, 2019
just right kind of tough to get 100%:))
+1
Level 34
Apr 12, 2019
Wait, is it by GDP or GNP? If its by GDP then China would be smaller than the United States. But if its GNP, then its switched. ?!?!?!!?
+1
Level ∞
Apr 12, 2019
As stated in the source it is GDP, purchasing power parity method.
+1
Level 42
Apr 13, 2019
How do you make it untimed? Still finished with 30/30 but in some quizzes find myself running out of time.
+1
Level 31
Apr 1, 2020
Phew. I remembered Japan and South Korea and the 8 last seconds. 30/30
+1
Level 57
Jun 1, 2020
I’m pretty sure that China is going through a heavy blow to its economy right now, due to Covid-19, sanctions and increased unemployment rates, due to this, I’m pretty sure the forecast of the economic measures will be quite obsolete despite this year

being 2020. But hey, they’re just hiding their weaknesses as of now. Just saying.

+1
Level 37
Jun 21, 2020
100%!! Came down to the last few seconds before I got papua new guinea
+2
Level 47
Sep 13, 2020
For Africa, I was writing the abbreviations for DRC but then it gave me dominican republic :D
+1
Level 58
Dec 19, 2020
Interesting how the only 2 continents that don't fall off from Trillions to Billions pretty quickly are Europe and Asia XD
+3
Level 73
Apr 3, 2021
Europe has a lot of money to make up for its lack of people, and Asia has a lot of people to make up for its lack of money.
+4
Level 71
Apr 22, 2021
UK and France must be interverted
+1
Level 57
Apr 22, 2021
Like this...
+1
Level 70
May 8, 2021
1:38 left with 30/30 on first try. Great!
+1
Level 51
Jun 16, 2021
Would you mind adding another minute on I had so many wrong guesses that I couldn't get around to North America
+1
Level 58
Jun 16, 2021
These figures are profoundly off. For instance: Japan has a GDP of over US $5 trillion while that of India is just US $2.8, but the quiz has it listed as over 10 trillion! Furthermore, South Korea's GDP is nearly $1.65 trillion and Indonesia's is under US $1.2 trillion.

These are just the Asian examples! Europe's numbers are also way off, with Russia being listed ahead of the UK and France despite their much higher GDPs in real life.

The WorldBank is my source for all of this. I suggest using it instead of whatever website where these bizarre figures were published.

+2
Level 57
Jun 16, 2021
Purchasing Power Parity. Which means that a few more things are playing into this e.g. the cost of living, etc.

This means that usually the numbers for "poorer" countries are higher. This is trying to reflect, especially if used as "per capita", how big the gaps between countries is when it comes to buying stuff. Not the best form of measurement but I like the idea

+2
Level 67
Jun 16, 2021
This quiz uses Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) not raw GDP
+1
Level ∞
Jun 16, 2021
As many have said, this quiz uses Purchasing Power Parity (PPP).

It's a better measure, in my opinion. So how does it work?

Let's say there are two countries whose economy consists solely of producing apples. Both countries produce exactly one million apples, alike in every way. Which country has the bigger economy?

According to PPP, both countries have the same size economy since they both make the same number of apples. But according to your measure, nominal GDP, it depends on how much the currencies of each country are worth.

I hope you can see why PPP makes more sense intuitively. It also seems to do other things better as well. For instance, it's more consistent year over year, and it is more strongly correlated with life expectancy. When it comes to measuring the size of the economy, PPP just makes more sense.

+1
Level 84
Sep 21, 2021
Except that no two countries produce exactly the same apples. There are differences in the value of the local currency, as well as differences in the type and quality of apples - how hardy they are, how easy they are to grow, the environment that they are growing in, differences in the transportation costs to get the apples to market due to many factors, differences in labor costs for growers/pickers/teamsters/vendors, differences in the quality of materials that go into fertilizer/pesticides/packaging, differences in the rigor of government health inspections or food safety standards which impact how much taxes one pays on the apple, differences in construction standards for the building in which the apples are stored or sold, and differences in the markets in which the apples are sold and the consumers that the apples are being sold to, and MORE. All of these things impact the value and end price of the apple in important ways. Ignoring them all produces nonsensical results.
+1
Level 84
Sep 21, 2021
PPP makes a lot of sense when comparing the average subsistence income for very poor people from place to place (which greatly impacts life expectancy). It makes some sense when looking at things like different countries' minimum wage. It makes absolutely no sense used to measure the size of an entire country's economy and using it for that is a gross misuse of the concept and not what it was originally intended for.
+1
Level 59
Sep 22, 2021
Wait, but an apple in war-torn Afghanistan is worth less than an apple in rock-solid London.

Or, am I thinking about this wrong?

+1
Level 52
Jun 17, 2021
I'm surprised by Ethiopia, I always thought they were a fairly poor country.
+1
Level 61
Jun 17, 2021
Forgot Solomon Islands and Indonesia
+1
Level 66
Jun 20, 2021
I guess there's a problem between France and UK numbers !
+2
Level 65
Sep 19, 2021
What about Antarctica?
+1
Level 60
Nov 11, 2021
How do you put the answers in different sections with their own headers?
+1
Level ∞
Nov 12, 2021
In Step 4, choose "Manual". Then, on the right side of the screen, under "Advanced", click "Format as Groups of Things".
+1
Level 73
Nov 12, 2021
The "more info here" link in the top of the quiz is not the correct link.
+1
Level ∞
Nov 12, 2021
Thank you. Fixed.
+1
Level 28
Nov 14, 2021
Most of the time, I think population wise, or size wise. Maybe this will help you too! ;)
+1
Level 46
Dec 16, 2021
Got stuck on the fourth one for Africa for a while, but finished with exactly a minute left!
+1
Level 50
Jan 14, 2022
india,s economy wont grow by 8 trillion in a year... plus its 2022 now so it is impossible
+1
Level 55
Jan 14, 2022
these gdp's are very wrong.
+1
Level 44
Jun 22, 2022
Looking at PPP is just nonsense. GDP nominal is much more valuable.
+1
Level 48
Aug 10, 2022
only one gap, Dominican republic. I didnt know they have a great economy