These are the richest and poorest countries in the world – including South Africa

Global Finance Magazine has listed the richest and poorest countries in the world based on GDP per capita, adjusted for purchasing power parity.

GDP-PPP makes for a better comparison of living standards, because PPP takes into account cost of living and inflation rates, rather than just exchange rates, which may distort the real differences in income, the magazine said.

“To know whether a country’s citizens are wealthy, we want to understand how much they are able to buy. Thus, a final adjustment factors in purchasing power,” it said.

If one simply considers gross domestic product (GDP)—the total value of goods and services produced within each nation—then the richest five countries in the world are (in order) the United States, China, Germany, Japan and the UK.

Yet those rankings don’t tell us much about relative living conditions, Global Finance said.

Similarly, the poorest five are (in order) Tuvalu, Nauru, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, and Palau. These countries yield little in annual production largely because they are so very very small—no more than dots in the Pacific Ocean on a world map, the report said.

The report’s data is based on information from the International Monetary Fund.

The 10 richest countries in the world

Values are expressed in current international dollars, to the nearest whole dollar, reflecting a single year’s (2016) currency exchange rates and PPP adjustments.

The 10 poorest countries in the world

South Africa ranks 93rd on the list with 13,179 international dollars. The Southern most country in Africa is only the 8th richest nation in Africa.

Nigeria has seen its economy slide from the continent’s largest GDP over thew past 15 months. The country with Africa’s largest population, at more than 180 million, is ranked 130th with 5,929 international dollars.

The 10 richest countries in Africa

Unsurprisingly, African countries make up the bulk of the poorest countries in the world, with Central African Republic at the bottom with a GDP per Capita of $656.

Read: These are the world’s richest countries