Country Size vs GDP

Big Footprint, Small GDP

Just 30 countries have a geographical area of more than one million square kilometers, led by Russia—the world's largest nation at over 17 million sq km.

Yet when ranked by nominal GDP, the economic output of these geographic giants reveals stark disparities: dense, industrialized powerhouses like the United States and China dominate the top spots, while vast but sparsely populated countries lag far behind.

Converting the top 30 largest countries by geographic size to an isometric treemap, then pulling up columns to represent GDP (compare the vertical heights), we can see a quick overview of contrasting economy size despite an abundance of land.

GDP is taken from World Bank for 3rd week of December 2025 (reflecting the year 2024).

Country size is in square kilometers and includes total area: the sum of land and water areas within international boundaries and coastlines.

Note: Greenland is not technically an independent country, it’s an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. Greenland GDP data is from 2023.