List of continents by GDP

This article includes a list of continents of the world sorted by their gross domestic product (GDP), the market value of all final goods and services from a continent in a given year. The GDP dollar estimates presented here are calculated at market or government official exchange rates. The figures presented here do not take into account differences in the cost of living in different countries, and the results can vary greatly from one year to another based on fluctuations in the exchange rates of the country's currency. Such fluctuations may change a continents ranking from one year to the next, even though they often make little or no difference to the standard of living of its population. Therefore, these figures should be used with caution. Comparisons of national wealth are also frequently made on the basis of purchasing power parity (PPP), to adjust for differences in the cost of living in different countries. (See List of countries by GDP (PPP).) PPP largely removes the exchange rate problem, but has its own drawbacks; it does not reflect the value of economic output in international trade, and it also requires more estimation than GDP per capita. On the whole, PPP per capita figures are more narrowly spread than nominal GDP per capita figures.