China's provinces compared to other countries

I don't know if the above map will work on your computer, but if it isn't, you should still check out this interactive map of China from the Economist Magazine's web site. It gives you a very good sense of the scale of the country, as well as some interesting differences between its many provinces.

For example, the province of Sichuan, where we are, has roughly the same population as Germany and the same total GDP as Malaysia. Switch to per person GDP, and Sichuan is on the same level of development (whatever that means) as Armenia. Likewise, the huge province exports about as much yearly as the tiny Persian Gulf island of Bahrain.

Okay, fellow map geeks, have at it!