This illustration of GDP size simultaneously incorporates countries and individual U.S. states. It’s eye-opening to see that California, just one of fifty states, has an economy about TWICE as big as the entirety of Russia. Folks like me who grew up in the Cold War think of Russia as some kind of head-to-head equal with the U.S., when in fact economically they’re pretty much just a pissant also-ran. I mean, good Lord, even Italy’s economy is bigger than Russia’s.
