Which Country Has the Highest Income per Person? (1900 - 2022)

In 1900, the United States and United Kingdom led the world in income per person. By 2022, tiny Qatar had raced past them all — with citizens earning around 2.5 times what Americans earn. This bar chart race traces GDP per capita (PPP, 2011 international $) for the richest countries in the world from 1900 to 2022 — revealing how two world wars, oil shocks, the Soviet collapse, and the rise of the Gulf states rewrote the global income ranking over 122 years. Key moments to look for: • 1914 — World War I devastates Europe; the United States widens its lead over the United Kingdom • 1945 — World War II ends with the US as the clear global income leader while Germany and Japan are flattened • 1973 — The Oil Crisis cements the Gulf states' position at the top of the income ranking • 1995 — Ireland's Celtic Tiger boom vaults it from the back of the ranking toward the top • 2020 — COVID-19 triggers the deepest global drop in per-capita incomes since WWII 📌 Why some of the world's richest countries are missing: The Maddison Project Database focuses on countries with consistent long-run historical GDP data, so several jurisdictions that would otherwise top the ranking are not included: • Monaco, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Andorra — European microstates / tax havens • Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey — offshore financial centers and UK crown dependencies • Macao — Special Administrative Region of China, not a sovereign state • Brunei — oil-rich state without a comparable long-run series in Maddison Their GDP-per-capita figures are also distorted by financial services recorded locally while the economic benefit flows to foreign beneficiaries. 📊 Data: Maddison Project Database 2023 via Our World in Data 📐 GDP per capita (PPP, 2011 international $) ───────────────────────────────────────── 🎵 Music: "Impact Allegretto" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Impact Prelude" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Impact Andante" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License ───────────────────────────────────────── The Variable — Data is the variable. Subscribe: @TheVariableData ───────────────────────────────────────── #BarChartRace #GDPperCapita #RichestCountries #DataVisualization #EconomicHistory #AnimatedStatistics