Technology
Countries Ranked by Their Economic Complexity
Countries Ranked by Their Economic Complexity
In the past, the trade between nations was a much simpler matter to grasp. Commodities and a few finished goods moved between a handful of countries in a straightforward way.
Today, around 6,000 officially classified products pass through the world’s ports, and digital products and services zip across country lines creating an extra layer of difficulty in measuring economic activity.
To try to understand this enormous level of economic complexity, the team at Harvard’s Growth Lab have created the Country Complexity Ranking. Here’s a look at the top 50 countries in the ranking:
Rank | Country | Score | Top Export(s) |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Japan | 2.28 | Cars, ICT (tech) |
2 | Switzerland | 2.14 | ICT, gold, packaged medicaments |
3 | South Korea | 2.05 | ICT, cars |
4 | Germany | 2.02 | Integrated circuits, ICT, cars |
5 | Singapore | 1.81 | ICT, cars |
6 | Czech Rep. | 1.79 | Cars, vehicle parts |
7 | Austria | 1.71 | ICT, tourism |
8 | Finland | 1.69 | ICT |
9 | Sweden | 1.67 | ICT |
10 | Hungary | 1.64 | ICT, cars |
11 | Slovenia | 1.57 | Cars, ICT |
12 | United States | 1.47 | ICT, tourism |
13 | Italy | 1.42 | ICT, tourism |
14 | United Kingdom | 1.42 | ICT, finance |
15 | Slovakia | 1.41 | Cars |
16 | France | 1.40 | ICT, tourism |
17 | Ireland | 1.39 | ICT |
18 | Israel | 1.37 | ICT, diamonds |
19 | China | 1.30 | Electronic equipment |
20 | Mexico | 1.27 | Cars |
21 | Poland | 1.19 | ICT |
22 | Denmark | 1.18 | Transport, ICT |
23 | Belgium | 1.16 | ICT |
24 | Romania | 1.16 | ICT, vehicle parts |
25 | Thailand | 1.15 | Tourism |
26 | Netherlands | 1.04 | ICT |
27 | Estonia | 1.03 | ICT, transport |
28 | Malaysia | 0.95 | Integrated circuits |
29 | Belarus | 0.93 | Refined oils, ICT |
30 | Croatia | 0.92 | Tourism, ICT |
31 | Lithuania | 0.85 | Transport, refined oils |
32 | Spain | 0.85 | Tourism, ICT |
33 | Philippines | 0.75 | Integrated circuits, ICT |
34 | Portugal | 0.72 | Tourism, ICT |
35 | Canada | 0.69 | Crude oil, cars, ICT |
36 | Bosnia and Herz. | 0.65 | Tourism, ICT |
37 | Serbia | 0.65 | ICT |
38 | Turkey | 0.65 | Tourism, transport |
39 | Latvia | 0.64 | Transport, ICT |
40 | Bulgaria | 0.62 | Tourism, ICT |
41 | Norway | 0.56 | Crude oil, petrol. gases |
42 | Ukraine | 0.42 | ICT, transport |
43 | Cyprus | 0.38 | Tourism, transport |
44 | Tunisia | 0.34 | Electrical wire, tourism |
45 | India | 0.32 | ICT |
46 | Costa Rica | 0.30 | ICT, tourism |
47 | Uruguay | 0.29 | Tourism, wood pulp |
48 | Brazil | 0.24 | Soya beans, iron ore |
49 | Russia | 0.24 | Crude oil, refined oils |
50 | Lebanon | 0.24 | Tourism, ICT |
Japan, Switzerland, and South Korea sit at the top of the ranking.
Czech Republic โ which was recently ranked as the most attractive manufacturing destination in Europe โ has a strong showing, ranking 6th in the world. The United States slipped out of the top 10 into 12th position.
The Power of Productive Knowledge
Highly ranked countries tend to have the following attributes:
-
โข A high diversity of exported products
โข Sophisticated and unique exported products (i.e. few other countries produce similar products)
In short, the ranking hinges on the concept of “productive knowledge” โ or the tacit ability to produce a product.
Muhammed Yildirim, of Harvard University, has thought up a useful analogy for thinking about the role of productive knowledge in the complexity of an economy:
“Suppose that each type of productive knowledge is a letter and each product is a word composed of these letters. Like the game of Scrabble, each country holds a set of letters with plenty of copies of each letter and tries to make words out of these letters. For instance, with letters like A, C and T, one can construct words like CAT or ACT. Then our problem of measuring economic complexity resembles interpreting how many different letters there are in each country’s portfolio. Some letters, like A and E, go in many words, whereas other letters, like X and Q, are used in very few. Extending this analogy to the countries and products, only those with a larger diversity of letters will be able to make more and more unique products. On the other hand, words that require more letters will be made only in the countries that have all the requisite pieces.”
Not All Exports are Created Equal
Much like the rack of letters in a Scrabble game, the elements of every export-driven economy can be broken down and quantified. The resulting categories encompass everything from rendered pig fat to integrated circuits, each contributing to the country’s overall score.
Agricultural and extractive industries tend to score lower on the complexity scale. Machinery can be highly complex to produce and is connected to many facets of the global economy.
Visualizing this overall mix of categories can provide a unique perspective beyond big picture numbers like GDP. Below are a few real world examples of export markets on both ends of the complexity spectrum.
Japan
Since this ranking began in the mid-1990s, Japan has never been bumped from the top spot.
Due to a restricted land mass and some ingenuity, Japan has become the prototypical example of a low-ubiquity, high-sophistication export economy.
โจCars and electronics are obvious standouts, but there numerous other high-value product categories in the mix as well. The country also has a wide variety of high value exports and trading partners, lowering the risk of a trade war or industry downturn crippling the country’s economy.
Australia
Many will be surprised to learn that Australia sits in the lower third of this complexity ranking.
Although Australia’s global ranking is high in a myriad of categories โ household wealth per person, for example โ its economic complexity score is -0.60, much lower than expected for its income level. Looking at the breakdown below, there are clues as to why this might be the case.
Australia’sโฉ largest exports are in โจlowโฉ complexity categories, such as minerals and agriculture. To compound matters, the country’s economy is heavily linked to China’s. To underscore this point, a recent study found that a 5% drop in China’s GDP would result in a 2.5% dip in Australia’s.
Venezuela
It’s no secret that Venezuela has seen some tough times in recent years. The chart below shows just how reliant Venezuela was on oil exports to sustain its economy.
An over-reliance on a single export can leave a country extremely vulnerable in the event of price volatility or geopolitical events. In the case of Venezuela, three quarters of their export economy was comprised of crude oil โ one of the lowest scoring product categories in the ranking.
The Rush to Diversify
A low level of economic complexity isn’t necessarily a problem. Many countries with middle-to-low scores in the ranking have great standards of living and a high level of wealth. Countries like Canada, Norway, and Australia were all well down the list.
On the other hand, some countries have made diversification a priority. SoftBank’s $100 billion Vision Fund is partially the result of Saudi Arabia’s push to develop a diversified, knowledge-based economy. Other oil-rich nations, such as Kazakhstan, are also pushing to diversify in the face of the world’s evolving energy mix.
As world economies evolve and the shift from fossil fuels continues, we will likely see economic complexity increase across the board.
Technology
Ranked: The Top 50 Most Visited Websites in the World
In this visualization, we rank the top 50 websites that receive the most internet traffic, from Google to CNN.

Ranked: The Top 50 Most Visited Websites in the World
Estimates vary, but there are upwards of two billion websites in existence in 2023.
If we were to rank all of these websites according to their traffic numbers, we would see a classic power law distribution. At the low end, the vast majority of these websites would be inactive, receiving little to no traffic. On the upper end of the ranking though, a handful of websites receive the lion’s share of internet traffic.
This visualization, using data from SimilarWeb, takes a look at the 50 websites that currently sit at the top of the ranking.
Which Websites Get the Most Traffic?
Topping the list of most-visited websites in the world is, of course, Google. With over 3.5 billion searches per day, Google has cemented its position as the go-to source for information on the internet. But Google’s dominance doesn’t stop there. The company also owns YouTube, the second-most popular website in the world. Together, Google and YouTube have more traffic than the next 48 websites combined.
The power of YouTube, in particular, is sometimes not fully understood. The video platform is the second largest search engine in the world after Google. As well, YouTube has the second highest duration-of-visit numbers in this top 50 ranking. (First place goes to the Chinese video sharing website, Bilibili.)
But Google and YouTube aren’t the only big players on the internet. Other websites in the top 50 ranking include social media giants Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. In particular, TikTok has seen a surge in popularity in recent years and is now one of the most popular social media platforms in the world.
Here’s the full top 50 ranking table form:
Rank | Website | Monthly Traffic | Category | Country |
---|---|---|---|---|
#1 | google.com | 85.1B | Search Engines | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#2 | youtube.com | 33.0B | Streaming & Online TV | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#3 | facebook.com | 17.8B | Social Media Networks | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#4 | twitter.com | 6.8B | Social Media Networks | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#5 | instagram.com | 6.1B | Social Media Networks | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#6 | baidu.com | 5.0B | Search Engines | ๐จ๐ณ China |
#7 | wikipedia.org | 4.8B | Dictionaries & Encyclopedias | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#8 | yandex.ru | 3.4B | Search Engines | ๐ท๐บ Russia |
#9 | yahoo.com | 3.3B | News & Media Publishers | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#10 | whatsapp.com | 2.9B | Social Media Networks | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#11 | xvideo.com | 2.8B | Adult | ๐จ๐ฟ Czechia |
#12 | amazon.com | 2.6B | Marketplace | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#13 | pornhub.com | 2.5B | Adult | ๐จ๐ฆ Canada |
#14 | xnxx.com | 2.3B | Adult | ๐ซ๐ท France |
#15 | live.com | 2.1B | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. | |
#16 | yahoo.co.jp | 2.1B | News & Media Publishers | ๐ฏ๐ต Japan |
#17 | netflix.com | 2.0B | Streaming & Online TV | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#18 | tiktok.com | 1.8B | Social Media Networks | ๐จ๐ณ China |
#19 | docomo.ne.jp | 1.8B | Telecommunications | ๐ฏ๐ต Japan |
#20 | reddit.com | 1.7B | Social Media Networks | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#21 | office.com | 1.6B | Prog. & Developer Software | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#22 | linkedin.com | 1.6B | Social Media Networks | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#23 | dzen.ru | 1.4B | Faith & Beliefs | ๐ท๐บ Russia |
#24 | samsung.com | 1.4B | Consumer Electronics | ๐ฐ๐ท S. Korea |
#25 | vk.com | 1.4B | Social Media Networks | ๐ท๐บ Russia |
#26 | xhamster.com | 1.3B | Adult | ๐จ๐พ Cyprus |
#27 | turbopages.org | 1.3B | News & Media Publishers | ๐ท๐บ Russia |
#28 | mail.ru | 1.2B | ๐ท๐บ Russia | |
#29 | naver.com | 1.2B | News & Media Publishers | ๐ฐ๐ท S. Korea |
#30 | bing.com | 1.2B | Search Engines | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#31 | microsoftonline.com | 1.1B | Prog. & Developer Software | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#32 | discord.com | 1.1B | Social Media Networks | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#33 | twitch.tv | 1.1B | Gaming & Accessories | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#34 | bilibili.com | 1.0B | Animations & Comics | ๐จ๐ณ China |
#35 | pinterest.com | 1.0B | Social Media Networks | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#36 | zoom.us | 985.9M | Computers Electronics & Tech | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#37 | weather.com | 985.7M | Weather | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#38 | qq.com | 907.1M | News & Media Publishers | ๐จ๐ณ China |
#39 | microsoft.com | 902.3M | Prog. & Developer Software | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#40 | msn.com | 870.8M | News & Media Publishers | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#41 | globo.com | 840.1M | News & Media Publishers | ๐ง๐ท Brazil |
#42 | duckduckgo.com | 839.0M | Search Engines | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#43 | roblox.com | 795.7M | Gaming & Accessories | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#44 | quora.com | 775.9M | Dictionaries & Encyclopedias | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#45 | news.yahoo.co.jp | 749.1M | News & Media Publishers | ๐ฏ๐ต Japan |
#46 | ebay.com | 728.0M | Marketplace | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#47 | aajtak.in | 724.1M | News & Media Publishers | ๐ฎ๐ณ India |
#48 | nytimes.com | 702.2M | News & Media Publishers | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#49 | realsrv.com | 688.0M | Adult | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
#50 | cnn.com | 684.9M | News & Media Publishers | ๐บ๐ธ U.S. |
Notable companies that have fallen out of the top 50 since our last version of this visualization are Walmart and PayPal. Notable entrants into the top 50 are Samsung and the New York Times.
The Geography of the 50 Most-Visited Websites
The United States is still home base for many of the world’s biggest websites, taking up 30 spots on this ranking. Of these 30 websites, half are operated by Big Tech companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Netflix.
Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea round out the top five.
Things get interesting in the “other” category, which includes six websites. Two spots are taken up by Aaj Tak and Globo, which are large media publications in India and Brazil, respectively.
The remaining four websitesโXVideos, PornHub, XHamster, and XNXXโspecialize in adult content, and are located in a variety of countries. These are often referred to as “tube sites” since they are built on the YouTube model.
Realsrv, the only adult-oriented site in the top 50 located in the U.S., is interesting to delve into as well, since it’s far from a household name. The website essentially supports advertising efforts by redirecting users away from the content they were viewing over to another page (generally premium adult content). This is one of the key ways that adult websites earn revenue.
Where does this data come from?
Source: SimilarWeb
Notes: Websites listed include “all meaningful subdomains”, and categories in the graphic follow SimilarWeb’s categorization system. This is the third version of this graphic. As with previous versions, we aim to use data from November for the sake of consistency and to avoid seasonal fluctuations in traffic. One important detail to point out is that website traffic does not include app traffic, which is why popular platforms like WeChat don’t appear in this ranking.
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