Can you name the countries with the highest debt (% of GDP)?

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Countries in Debt Quiz

Rating:	Report a mistake
Published: March 4th, 2009
Category: Geography
Plays: 110,539

Tags: Country Quizzes, gdp, debt, highest

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	Klingsta:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 04:27 GMT	10 points
	surprised no Argentina andddd USA baby! we aren't the worst!

	vogz:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 04:29 GMT	20 points
	i should really learn all the countries of the world before i continue doing quizzes like this...

	Evan:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 04:31 GMT	15 points
	i got 14. just guessed countries until time ran out...

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	BentKangaroo:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 04:34 GMT	34 points
	I thought Iceland was way over 100% now that the banks have collapsed. But I could be remembering another statistic.

	Gordo:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 05:01 GMT	27 points
	This list is woefully out of date by now, unfortunately, just because almost all of these numbers are from some time in 2008 pre-Lehman.

	frey553:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 05:05 GMT	9 points
	@Burton: Sporcle is hardly an accurate representation of the world's population. That being said, I didn't get Zimbabwe and I'd like to think I'm somewhat generally aware of world politics. I certainly don't actively look up what's going on day to day on all the various continents though.

	sbarrett:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 05:08 GMT	12 points
	Great quiz, now all we need is a quiz for the countries that own the most of the debt. Though, I bet it would start and end with China.

	UCLA83:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 05:39 GMT	17 points
	@beau: iceland was my very first guess as well. i think their stock market fell like 70% in one day or something crazy like that. @burton: get off your high horse.

	MetaphysicalMan:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 06:13 GMT	25 points
	For those who didn't get Zimbabwe.. do some Googling for Robert Mugabe, and what he has done to the economy of Zimbabwe. It is fascinating how badly it is messed up. Makes the current U.S. situation look like a picnic.

	xander:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 06:24 GMT	11 points
	I agree with Sam, it would be interesting to see who owns the debt (though I wonder if some isn't owned by private investors rather than countries). And it's interesting how there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to this debt. Sure, Zimbabwe I understand, but why the seychelles? Or Uruguay?

	bsd987:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 06:26 GMT	17 points
	@David - i'm not on a high horse. the zimbabwe crisis is one of the worst in modern world history, with inflation on par with Weimar Germany in the 1920s. yet it gets almost zero media attention.

	Etheridge2:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 06:32 GMT	13 points
	How is Iceland not on this list isn't the whole country bankrupt?

	Monoclinic:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 06:35 GMT	3 points
	LOL Jeremy! I was also suprised by the lack of Argentina, is their crisis resolved already or was a great part written off?

	onetheta:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 07:08 GMT	9 points
	One of the UK retail groups have just been bought by an Icelandic bank, which is pretty sobering, As for Zimbabwe, it is extensively covered in the UK, and would be more so except all BBC journalists are banned. According to Mugabe all the problems in Zimbabwe are caused by the UK anyway.

	raisingfear101:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 07:26 GMT	1 point
	@burton: kinda jerky thing to say, no?

	Robert_Lo:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 07:42 GMT	22 points
	@ Burton: If the situation gets almost zero media attention, how do you expect the average citizen to know about it? Kinda contradictory, don't you think?

	davebesag:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 10:28 GMT	-4 points
	It's not contradictory. If there's little media attention then it's easy to be ignorant.

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	newenglander:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 10:46 GMT	6 points
	im surprised brazil isnt on there.

	ckbryant:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 11:19 GMT	12 points
	Got 18, but I was pretty much just typing countries at random. This is a tough one--there's no thread linking everyone on the list. Some industrialized democracies--but not all--some third-world basket cases--but not all--and, surprisingly, countries that you hear about on the news for debt trouble (like Ecuador) don't even make it. It's funny: I would have expected more of a pattern to show itself in the data.

	Havok3595:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 11:41 GMT	7 points
	Bonus answer of the UK at 43rd. I got Zimbabwe, and a few others, right off the top, although Argentina and Iceland's omission surprised me too. Most major European countries are in there, though, so running through them helped out. Got 14.

	daisyap:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 11:42 GMT	3 points
	I must completely not udnerstand this, I thought countries that are in debt are the poor ones!

	zigra:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 12:07 GMT	6 points
	@Daisy: I thought that too, but I guess in order to be in debt as a nation, other nations must be willing to lend you money. Remeber that Zimbabwe had a successful economy in the 80s and early 90s.

	zigra:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 12:07 GMT	3 points
	or maybe you should "remember" it -sorry for not proofreading!

	Bretzky:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 12:36 GMT	4 points
	Klingsta: I think Argentina isn't on the list because they defaulted on most of their sovereign debt about six or seven years ago. They just haven't had enough time to regrow it, but they are well on their way.

	thesean:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 12:38 GMT	8 points
	Since this quiz is about debt as a factor of GDP, then it makes sense that the US will be a lot further down than one might initially think. America's GDP hasn't really fallen much since the beginning of financial crisis. Also, you've got to be concerned with what currency your debt is denominated in. If you're the US and pretty much all your debt is denominated in US dollars (and you're getting basically 0% interest loans from countries like Japan and China) then you won't have near as much of a problem as if your debt is in a foreign currency and your currency weakens.

	expat:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 12:47 GMT	3 points
	Bretzky, living in Argentina it was my first guess but you are right ... skipped out on a bunch of debt but WELL on our way to getting back in the top 10. Vamos Argentina

	Kicking222:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 13:40 GMT	4 points
	Eh, not a fan of this quiz. Yet another that's just "guess as many countries as possible in the time allotted". There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why one country would appear on the list over another- there's no common link between a country's debt and its size, location, or wealth.

	Malica:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 13:49 GMT	2 points
	Interesting to see it as a ratio against the GDP -- No wonder Zimbabwe is a lot higher on the list when their GDP per person is only $200. It would be interesting to see country's debts as straight dollars and cents. (according to the source, it would work out that Zimbabwe has a debt of just 11 million compared to USA's 8.9 trillion!)

	chambers:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 14:25 GMT	7 points
	chuffed with bhutan stab in the dark

	R:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 14:27 GMT	4 points
	How the hell does Norway get on this list? Don't they have a huge investment fund from oil revenue that easily cancels their debts?

	RobH:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 14:48 GMT	9 points
	No Iceland? No Argentina? I Am also a little shocked at how few (relatively) got Zimbabwe. There's clearly only one country that could possibly have a 241.2% ratio and it was one of the first I thought of. Then again, I didn't do too well on this quiz; 14/25.

	Uhlan:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 14:49 GMT	4 points
	I am surprised anyone lends to Zimbabwe at the moment. Maybe that is why fairly few people get it.

	EasilyConfused:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 16:06 GMT	3 points
	Excellent quiz. Puts things in perspective.

	raindrop:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 17:12 GMT	1 point
	What it didn't say in the title, is that it is the public debt of the countries, i.e. the debt of its citizens rather than the whole country. And as most Norwegians have home mortgages, that probably explains their high position in this table.

	jkd:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 17:51 GMT	4 points
	@ckbryant: I was surprised by the lack of a thread as well. I guess it is due to the fact that we are looking at a ratio here: debt to GDP. High debt or low GDP gives a high ratio.

	Edward Russell:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 18:18 GMT	4 points
	@raindrop: Isn't it more appropriate to call it private debt (ie. belonging to private individuals), public debt implies debt of the public sector, ie. government debt.

	Thornographic:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 18:44 GMT	3 points
	Put in Bhutan in a moment of desperate madness and was pleasantly surprised. Didn't get Israel though (D'oh!)...17/25

	zalagreensbury:	Mar 4th, 2009 at 18:59 GMT	0 points
	Iceland needs to be up there because the Portugese practically bankrupted the country. Zimbabwe's not a shock at all since their money is practically the equivalent of toilet tissue; but what fascinates me is that China and Cuba aren't there...maybe those communists are on to something?