An Indian summary

How big is Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state? One way of answering the question is to take its total area: 95,000 square miles (246,000 sq km). Another way is to think of it as a country. If Uttar Pradesh were to declare independence, it would be the world's fifth most populous country (as the map below shows, it has about the same number of residents as Brazil). Yet its economy would only be the size of Qatar, a tiny oil-rich state of fewer than 2m people. That makes it poor on a per person basis. Despite India's two decades of rapid growth, Uttar Pradesh's GDP per head is close to that of Kenya. The map below presents country equivalents for India's states and territories in terms of GDP, GDP per person (in PPP terms) and population. Please play around with it and tell us what you think.

Also see our other "country equivalents" interactive maps:

US states as countries

Chinese provinces as countries

Brazilian states as countries