What does GDP PER CAPITAL exactly mean?

Question

What does GDP PER CAPITAL exactly mean?And how does it help a country?

Answer 1

Actually, it is 'GDP per capita'.

Total gross domestic product divided by total population. It is used as an indicator of the average standard of living in a country. You can use to compare living standards in different countries and over time for the same country. It reveals nothing about how income is distributed among the population.

Answer 2

GDP Per capita

GDP - Gross Domestic Product

per capita - is per person

GDP - measures the wealth of a country based on the total goods and services produced. But then if you are comparing countries when one could be 5 million people and the next one 350 million people. So doing it per capita takes the productivity of an average person, and then lets you compare countries.

Here is the link to GDP per Capita list. The answer above gives GDP total with 1 US 2 Japan 3 Germany 4 China.

When measured based on population they are now 8th, 19th, 18th and 108th. But you can also see from the list that it skews toward westernized countries with low populations.

Answer 3

Yeah, check wiki for an explanation. US #1. The next three countries combine equals the US numbers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)