The Economy -- El Salvador and its neighbors

As part of my current series on economic topics, I've collected a series of comparative economic statistics for El Salvador and its neighbors in Central America. The source of these statistics is the CIA World Factbook which compiles these statistics and many, many more. The chart below compares the per capita GDP (gross domestic product) of these nations. This is the economic output of the country divided by its population and is a rough measure of the economic prosperity of a country.

For this measure, GDP is measured on a "purchasing power parity" basis which is designed to allow comparisons among countries. For a greater explanation, you can read the definitions from the CIA World Factbook.

(click on chart for a larger version)

The statistics for the individual countries are set out below:

El Salvador
GDP $43.94 billion
Per capita GDP $6,200
Population 7,185,218 *
Growth rate 3.2%

Costa Rica
GDP $48.48 billion
Per capita GDP $11,600
Population 4,253,877
Growth rate 3%

Nicaragua
GDP $16.83 billion
Per capita GDP $2,900
Population 5,891,199
Growth rate 2%

Honduras
GDP $33.63 billion
Per capita GDP $4,400
Population 7,792,854
Growth rate 4%

Guatemala
GDP $68.02 billion
Per capita GDP $5,200
Population 13,276,517
Growth rate 3.8%

Panama
GDP $38.49 billion
Per capita GDP $11,600
Population 3,360,474
Growth rate 8.3%

Belize
GDP $2.577 billion
Per capita GDP $8,600
Population 307,899
Growth rate 4.8%

* Note -- I'm not sure where the CIA got its population figure for El Salvador. The 2007 census in El Salvador tallied only 5.7 million people in the country. Even though the CIA labels the figure a July 2009 estimate, this is almost a 25% difference. Using the 5.7 million figure would produce a per capita GDP of $7700.