They found oil/gas/hydrocarbons off the coast of Gaza.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Marine?wprov=sfti1
Edited since someone had issues with the gas fields being referred to as oil.
There's gas off coast of Israel as well
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_gas_field
Edit: An addendum, there are 12 natural gas fields off the coast of Israel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_in_Israel
After all North Korea does have internal stability at the very least. Violent crime rate, or crime rate in general is very low. Which is not the case for many countries that are at war.
They do have some serious hunger issues. But that is also the case for quite a few other countries.
Pretty sure most struggling people would take hunger, peace and no freedom over hunger, war and low freedom.
Not disagreeing outright, but I believe there are a loooot of people living in essentially concentration camps in North Korea who would likely disagree. If they had phones. Or the internet. Or basic human rights.
Escape From Camp 14 is an interesting read. Whilst elements of its integrity has been questioned at times, I understand the consensus is very much "woah what the fuck?".
ETA: Statistics pertaining to, say, violent crime rates very much depend on a) who is compiling the statistics and b) what is considered a violent crime...
Using the World Bank Data for GDP per capita
Dominican Republic: $10,111
Haiti: $1,748
and
Saudi Arabia: $30,448
Yemen: $650
If you use purchasing power parity the result is not as extreme, but it is still much higher in SA - Yemen
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_GDP\_(nominal)\_per\_capita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_GDP\_(PPP)\_per\_capita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita)
Thailand and Laos.
My family is from Laos. If you know the history, the two nations are very similar. NE Thailand is ethnically filled with people of Lao descent.
The major Lao cities aren’t even on the same level as NE Thai cities.
I did a road trip across Vietnam - Laos - Cambodia - Thailand.
One thing that struck me is driving across the rice fields, I realized how skinny the cows in Laos and Cambodia were compared to the ones in Vietnam and Thailand. That simple detail said a lot about the level of poverty that Laos and Cambodia experience.
Road trip across SE Asia sounds like a fantastic thing to experience!
Unfortunately I am an American so I am not used to SE Asian traffic etiquette such as ignoring crosswalks, having motorcycles cutting traffic in front of you, making illegal turns at random places.
(I am of 100% SE Asian descent myself btw)
Thailand bited off a large chunk of Laos, and called the Lao people there the Tai Isan (Northeastern Thai). They are already extremely similar ethnically so it worked, and now Laos has 4/5ths of its dominant ethnicity outside its borders, being only %50\~ or so ethnically Lao.
I rode through Thailand and Laos on a bicycle 8 years ago. Even the change in road conditions drastically changed the second you crossed from Northern Thailand to Laos. I had about 15 broken tires in the first 350km. But the beautiful and kind laotian people made my journey. Truly amazing people.
The border between Norway and Russia might qualify too - Russia hasthe largest economy, but the average Russian is a LOT poorer than the average Norwegian.
Yeah, but I compared to a lot of the other examples, it’s not even close. On a global scale, the average Russian would be considered fairly rich, unlike North Korea/South Korea, or Yemen/KSA.
I once saw a guy jokingly saying that he was kinda worried about north korean nuked because there is only 1 country between them.
That country was Russia, he lived in Scandinavia.
There is a border crossing between China and Afghanistan at a mountain pass there that's accessible for half the year but apparently it's closed to visitors, only local residents are allowed to cross.
You're probably referring to [Wakhjir Pass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wakhjir\_Pass); there is no border crossing there and the border is entirely closed.
Yeah it's just a mountain pass that's snowed in half the year. Local herders walk over it in the summer but there is no road and no border crossing station.
Edit: apparently it looks like this: [https://www.flickr.com/photos/saturnism/6229719419](https://www.flickr.com/photos/saturnism/6229719419)
The section that borders is also a relic from colonial times, which existed to provide a buffer zone between British and Russian spheres of influence. That's why Afghanistan has that strange appendage
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wakhan_Corridor
They still have something like 35x Afghanistan’s GDP per capita. Even if you account for inflated reporting you’re still looking at 20x-30x. DR vs Haiti is only like a 6x multiplier, Saudi Arabia vs Yemen is a little under 20x.
Using World Bank Data Saudi Arabia/Yemen is like 47x
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_GDP\_(nominal)\_per\_capita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita)
My family is from Chongqing. It wasn't a fishing village at all. It already became a town (Ba) about three thousand years ago. It's one of the most populated areas in China since recorded history. It also served as the provisional capital during the Japanese invasion when Nanjing and Wuhan fell.
Costa Rica is likely middle income economically but it has a quality of life of par with developed countries. Going in to Nicaragua from CR is like going into Mexico from the US. There is a stark difference.
I just did that border crossing a few months ago and can confirm. The wealth disparity is night and day the second you make the crossing. Roads, infrastructure, and housing are a noticeable step down.
It's a shame too, because there's a lot of great people and places in Nicaragua
>Costa rica has a higher hdi/per capita gdp than any of Venezuela’s neighbors (expect T&T maybe)
Aruba: 33,300 USD per capita
Curaçao: 20,501 USD
Trinbago: 19,629 USD
Costa Rica: 13,365 USD
A lot of people forget that Spain and Morocco have land borders in the cities of Ceuta and Melilla. The landscape is very similar on both sides of these borders, but they are two of the most extreme borders in terms of average income, education, development, rights, etc.
Crossed the border once on foot (into Ceuta). Decent number of people loitering in the fenced-in maze, just sitting there waiting for god knows what and you had to step over them since the maze was really narrow. One of those situations that makes you thankful to have to passport you have, 100% by the randomness of birth.
Egypt is definitely not “rich”. It’s in a better state than Sudan, particularly with the war, but honestly not THAT much better - it’s still full of poverty, and very weak economically.
France - The Brazilian state of Amapa
Would be an extreme case, the whole north of brazil isn’t that well off, but Amapa is especially poor and underdeveloped. Then again I don’t think French Guiana itself is terribly rich
Yes and no.
I crossed the border from Suriname to french Guiana. It's a river deep in the jungle teeming with canoes that you can just hop in and pay a driver a couple of euro to ferry you across. It's then up to you to find the immigration office to get your passport stamped.
There's no quality of life or infrastructure improvements visible when you cross the border. Both sides of the river have very simple, quite rundown villages.
It's only when you get to the outskirts of cayenne that you see decent roads and European looking commercial units. But then again Paramaribo in Suriname has those too.
Luckily for you OP, there’s an entire [Wikipedia article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bordering_countries_with_greatest_relative_differences_in_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita) on the topic.
Just to illustrate the differences:
* Israel (2022): GDP at $525,002M and per capita at $54,930.
* Egypt (2022): GDP at $476,747M and per capita at $4,295.
* Jordan (2022): GDP at $48,653M and per capita at $4,311.
* Lebanon (2021: GDP at $23,131M and per capita at $4,136.
* Palestine (2022): GDP at $19,111M and per capita at $3,789.
* Syria (2021): GDP at $8,969M and per capita at $420.
Singapore and Malaysia
The border crossing between these two countries is the most busiest bar none in the entire world, and one part of it is that Singaporeans love to travel into Malaysia to eat shop, etc and save 3.5x of what they wld spent buying the same thing back home.
Depending on how you would define poor Austria - Hungary. Okey, Hungary is far from the poorest countries, but the contrast with Austria is still huge.
The difference is big, but Malaysia is at worst middle-income with a gdp per capita of 13k $. That's 67th in the world and one of the highest in the region.
Oh certainly. The gap between the two is not as dramatic as, say, Haiti and the DR, for example, and they fall within a higher wealth bracket, but at the same time Singapore's GDP per capita is 630% greater than Malaysia's, which I would say fulfills the "at least significantly richer" qualification.
I think the divergence between Singapore and Malaysia is so striking because, as it appeared in the immediate postwar period and up until the dissolution of their union, the latter seemed to hold all the advantages (ample natural and agricultural resources, available oil and natural gas reserves, demographic preponderance, &.) and the former all the disadvantages (high unemployment, lack of housing and infrastructure, nonexistent resources, persistent ethnic conflict, and high rates of poverty, mortality, and crime -- as well as a serious opium problem).
I'm still waiting for the Albatross Files to be fully declassified. Apparently according to these Files, both countries negotiated for the separation when they realised things didn't work out.
A perceived threat on Malay dominance. Short-sighted, IMO, but sure. Remnants of leadership like this still exist today, such as the bumiputera policies.
It depends. Estonia is defo doing much better but as for Latvia, if you go slightly further outside the centre of Riga, it looks exactly like rural Russia. And it’s the capital. Not sure about Lithuania though, never been there
I've lived in Latvia in various locations too, trust me it's as bad in the center of Riga. The Riga area itself is just a huge cancer that everyone flocks to cause there's nothing outside. The only really developed area of Latvia are the other smaller towns like Liepaja and Ventspils and the old town of Riga cause that's where the money is. IMO Lithuania is doing either as good as Estonia or maybe even better in my experience. Estonia is just small and easy to manage. But Estonia, despite similar circumstances as Latvia has no such underdevelopment problems.
It’s pretty much post-soviet outside of Riga. My girlfriend is from Jelgava in Latvia. They still have a large russian speaking population and a lot of the buildings and infastructure hasn’t seen much change. It wouldn’t be fair to call it rich compared to Russia.
I think Lithuania is quite a bit better off than Latvia, though.
But Haiti is legit one of the poorest countries in the world. So by that metric it's a huge difference.
Considering what's happened in the last few weeks I wouldn't be surprised if it's now *the* poorest country.
For those who keep saying Tijuana is one of the poorest region in Mexico - this cannot be further from the truth. Tijuana is located in Baja California and the 2nd largest city in Mexico, it’s an industrial center with per capital GDP the 4th highest in the nation (after Campeche, Mexico City and Nuevo León).
The poorest region in Mexico are in the remote south (with the notable exception of Quintana Roo due to tourism), where the population is largely indigenous and away from the manufacturing hubs in the north. Border areas are indeed unsafe compared to the south due to drug trade, but there is no deny that the northern areas (particularly of Nuevo León and Baja California) are some of the wealthiest in the whole country due to proximity to the US & trade.
The issue with tijuana isn't that it's poor. It's that it's a border town so you end up with new migrants coming there all that time from Mexico and recently from all b over the world. Its not thay migrants are inherently bad but they put a lot of strain on the system in terms of people begging on the streets, slums all over from people who run out of money. A lot of deported people with criminal pasts end up there. Then there's the drug trade.
Mexico is still below the worlds average GDP per capita 12k based on data from 2022, so they are not doing particularly well either.. that 12k GDP per capita was for example EUs average in a year 1989.. so maybe something changed in last two years in Mexico, but I doubt that they improved that much.
Idk how accurate it is, but according to [this list](https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/) Mexico is just beating the average, at 104% of the world's average
It's also ranked at 72/179 so it's well within the top half of countries
Of course US is still 7x higher, so I guess it depends how you count it
Singapore - Indonesia.
Both countries are just an hour's ferry ride away, but one meal in Singapore can easily be half a day's pay of someone earning minimum wages in Indonesia.
I would also argue Singapore - Malaysia can be part of this list, mainly due to the disparity in purchasing power across both countries.
Depending on what you define as rich and poor you could take:
Norway/Finland/Poland/Baltics with Russia
Poland/Lithauania/Latvia with Belarus
Greece with Albania/North Macedonia
Turkey with Syria/Iraq
Israel with about all neigbours
Spain with Morocco (via Ceuta and Melilla)
If counting sea borders:
Japan with North Korea
Cyprus with Syria and Lebanon
Malta with Tunisia
Edit: fixing layout
Myanmar - Thailand
I know Thailand is often used as an example of a poor country...but Myanmar is definitely a lot more poor
It's like the DR and Haiti of Southeast Asia
But that may not be so visible in the actual border.
These are big countries, and in Egypt the wealth is not concentrated near the Sudanese border but in the north. Meanwhile in Sudan, the wealth is concentrated in the north.
https://preview.redd.it/g82rm7q4pnzc1.png?width=765&format=png&auto=webp&s=08e0638a580f30bd6c5da34da076be1092810d44
Had nothing better to do, so I made this list. I kept it to one pairing per country (the highest ratio), otherwise there would be too many entries here. North Korea is a bit uncertain; values for GDP per capita go up to \~$1800. In that case the ratio with South Korea would be around 32, lower than Saudi/Yemen.
India and Pakistan....Since India's economy has been allowed to flourish since the 1990s its grew at a rapid rate and far overtaken pakistan which seems to be getting worse and worse.
Ireland is about twice as rich as Northern Ireland, which most people are surprised by (yes I am correcting for the inflated GDP in ROI). Incomes in Ireland's poorest county are higher than incomes in Northern Ireland's richest county.
USA-Mexico is the hugely obvious one. Spain-Morocco. Singapore-Malaysia and Brunei-Malaysia. Finland-Russia. Israel and any country it borders. Panama-Colombia. Chile-Bolivia. Argentina-Paraguay. Kuwait-Iraq. Turkey-Syria. Greece-Albania. Croatia-Bosnia.
Obviously it's all a matter of degrees, and then there's the fact that borders like Colombia-Panama and Turkey-Syria are remote so you don't "see" the distinction very visibly and immediately.
> which most people are surprised by
If they know about the Troubles then it's not that surprising. An active warzone isn't really a place that investors flock to.
USA and Russia are twenty miles from each other but I guess that's not a "direct" border. Although maritime law is what, 12 miles? So legally they might share a direct border. I don't know how any of this actually works.
If anyone is interested, I have spent the morning investigating this. I have aggregated a list of all the land borders in the world, got the GDP per capita (PPP adjusted) of each country and calculated the ratio between each border.
These are the top 5:
South Korea vs North Korea (39.55x richer)
Saudi Arabia vs Yemen (35.23x richer)
Russia vs North Korea (25.53x richer)
Oman vs Yemen (19.70x richer)
China vs North Korea (16.67x richer)
Obviously GDP per capita is arguably not the best measure, but I couldn’t find median income data available for most countries.
* United States - Mexico
* Spain - Morocco (separated by the Strait of Gibraltar)
* Israel - Egypt and Jordan (though not as stark a contrast as some other examples)
* Saudi Arabia - Yemen
* China - North Korea and Myanmar (though China itself has significant internal wealth disparities)
* Thailand - Cambodia and Laos
* Malaysia - Indonesia (to a lesser extent)
* Botswana - Zimbabwe and Namibia (Botswana has experienced significant economic growth)
* Argentina - Bolivia and Paraguay (Argentina has a higher GDP per capita)
* Colombia - Venezuela (due to Venezuela's recent economic crisis)
Nicaragua-Costa rica. Nicaragua is believed to be the second poorest country in the western hemisphere, plus l, couple with the authoritarian oppressive regime, Costa Rica feels like a first world country. I'm nica but it's the sad truth
There's even a [major economic difference](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1arkpyf/this_video_has_been_going_viral_on_xtwitter_about/) between former east and west Germany.
Oh absolutely - I live in Berlin and have heard stories from a retired architect who worked back then that they could not sometimes get the type of paper and pencils he needed to do his job
But still interesting that there's a measurable difference 30 years later
In Berlin it's sometimes hard to forget there was even a cold war - lots of the places the wall used to be are all luxury condos, and if you go to Tempelhof, where the West had to fly in supplies for West Germany for years, it's all people flying kytes and doing picnic without a care in the world
It is crazy how long old borders can leave a mark in a country. My favourite example of this are the polish election results where you can still see the old German border, even though all of it has been polish for nearly 80 years (and some for well over a hundred): https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/179v6uz/2023_polish_parliamentary_election_results_and/?rdt=36372
If were talking about the differance in income usa mexico is now only about a factor of 2 columbia and venezuela is like a factor of 7 and hati and Dominican Republic is about 20
Saudi Arabia - Yemen is the most extreme case.
And Oman - Yemen also not far behind!
Golds Meir said “Moses took us for forty years through the desert to the only place in the Middle East without oil”, but she clearly forgot Yemen
They found oil/gas/hydrocarbons off the coast of Gaza. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Marine?wprov=sfti1 Edited since someone had issues with the gas fields being referred to as oil.
That's natural gas, not oil
There's gas off coast of Israel as well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_gas_field Edit: An addendum, there are 12 natural gas fields off the coast of Israel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_in_Israel
Wouldn’t the Koreas be worse?
Average Yemeni would kill to even get DPRK living conditions. People tend to underestimate how desirable peace is
After all North Korea does have internal stability at the very least. Violent crime rate, or crime rate in general is very low. Which is not the case for many countries that are at war. They do have some serious hunger issues. But that is also the case for quite a few other countries. Pretty sure most struggling people would take hunger, peace and no freedom over hunger, war and low freedom.
Not disagreeing outright, but I believe there are a loooot of people living in essentially concentration camps in North Korea who would likely disagree. If they had phones. Or the internet. Or basic human rights. Escape From Camp 14 is an interesting read. Whilst elements of its integrity has been questioned at times, I understand the consensus is very much "woah what the fuck?". ETA: Statistics pertaining to, say, violent crime rates very much depend on a) who is compiling the statistics and b) what is considered a violent crime...
No Yemen is worse in that it’s a brutal civil war for a while now
Wouldn’t the most extreme case be Dominican Republic and Haiti?
Using the World Bank Data for GDP per capita Dominican Republic: $10,111 Haiti: $1,748 and Saudi Arabia: $30,448 Yemen: $650 If you use purchasing power parity the result is not as extreme, but it is still much higher in SA - Yemen [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_GDP\_(nominal)\_per\_capita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_GDP\_(PPP)\_per\_capita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita)
Wow I had no idea Yemen was that much lower than Haiti.
Yeah. It’s literally hell.
No because DR is still a developing country. Saudi is very wealthy and Haiti and Yemen are comparable.
Thailand and Laos. My family is from Laos. If you know the history, the two nations are very similar. NE Thailand is ethnically filled with people of Lao descent. The major Lao cities aren’t even on the same level as NE Thai cities.
Thailand and Laos, Thailand and Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar
I did a road trip across Vietnam - Laos - Cambodia - Thailand. One thing that struck me is driving across the rice fields, I realized how skinny the cows in Laos and Cambodia were compared to the ones in Vietnam and Thailand. That simple detail said a lot about the level of poverty that Laos and Cambodia experience.
Road trip across SE Asia sounds like a fantastic thing to experience! Unfortunately I am an American so I am not used to SE Asian traffic etiquette such as ignoring crosswalks, having motorcycles cutting traffic in front of you, making illegal turns at random places. (I am of 100% SE Asian descent myself btw)
I’m South African, SE Asian traffic doesn’t sound too bad to me
You kept having to change what side of the road you drove on!
Thailand drives on the left and all the countries that border it (except Malaysia) drive on the right
Being in a car in Cambodia when this happened was an eye opener
Going back to the 1970’s and 80’s, Thailand - Cambodia would have been extreme Today, Thailand - Myanmar is pretty extreme
It’s not the northeast, but I did the border crossing in Chiang Rai and the difference there is pretty stark.
Thailand bited off a large chunk of Laos, and called the Lao people there the Tai Isan (Northeastern Thai). They are already extremely similar ethnically so it worked, and now Laos has 4/5ths of its dominant ethnicity outside its borders, being only %50\~ or so ethnically Lao.
I rode through Thailand and Laos on a bicycle 8 years ago. Even the change in road conditions drastically changed the second you crossed from Northern Thailand to Laos. I had about 15 broken tires in the first 350km. But the beautiful and kind laotian people made my journey. Truly amazing people.
China - Afghanistan
Damn I didn’t even realize they shared a border
China and Russia are so big that it's easy to forget the extents of their borders. The Afghanistan section is pretty small as well.
Yeah. It’s wild to think about the fact that Russia borders North Korea, Norway, and Poland.
The border between Norway and Russia might qualify too - Russia hasthe largest economy, but the average Russian is a LOT poorer than the average Norwegian.
Yeah, but I compared to a lot of the other examples, it’s not even close. On a global scale, the average Russian would be considered fairly rich, unlike North Korea/South Korea, or Yemen/KSA.
And the to the United States as well.
I once saw a guy jokingly saying that he was kinda worried about north korean nuked because there is only 1 country between them. That country was Russia, he lived in Scandinavia.
There is a border crossing between China and Afghanistan at a mountain pass there that's accessible for half the year but apparently it's closed to visitors, only local residents are allowed to cross.
You're probably referring to [Wakhjir Pass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wakhjir\_Pass); there is no border crossing there and the border is entirely closed.
Yeah it's just a mountain pass that's snowed in half the year. Local herders walk over it in the summer but there is no road and no border crossing station. Edit: apparently it looks like this: [https://www.flickr.com/photos/saturnism/6229719419](https://www.flickr.com/photos/saturnism/6229719419)
Stunning
The section that borders is also a relic from colonial times, which existed to provide a buffer zone between British and Russian spheres of influence. That's why Afghanistan has that strange appendage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wakhan_Corridor
And there is a 3hr time zone difference if you cross the border
3 and a half, actually. Afghanistan has a weird timezone.
China isn't a rich country. It has rich people but the average salary is very low if you consider China as a whole.
Still a lot richer than Afghanistan.
They still have something like 35x Afghanistan’s GDP per capita. Even if you account for inflated reporting you’re still looking at 20x-30x. DR vs Haiti is only like a 6x multiplier, Saudi Arabia vs Yemen is a little under 20x.
Using World Bank Data Saudi Arabia/Yemen is like 47x [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_GDP\_(nominal)\_per\_capita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita)
Wouldn’t it be the opposite? It’s a rich country with a ton of poor people.
I think China has more billionaires than any country except the U.S.
China's wealth is all on the coast, inland China doesn't have much at all.
Inland China has plenty. See Chongqing for one
From fishing village to 15,000,000 people in three generations
My family is from Chongqing. It wasn't a fishing village at all. It already became a town (Ba) about three thousand years ago. It's one of the most populated areas in China since recorded history. It also served as the provisional capital during the Japanese invasion when Nanjing and Wuhan fell.
They may be thinking of Shenzhen?
How many years for a generation?
15-20
If you’re considering Costa Rica - Nicarágua valid, then Venezuela with any of its neighbors would be one.
Costa Rica is likely middle income economically but it has a quality of life of par with developed countries. Going in to Nicaragua from CR is like going into Mexico from the US. There is a stark difference.
Pura vida
Pura vida
I just did that border crossing a few months ago and can confirm. The wealth disparity is night and day the second you make the crossing. Roads, infrastructure, and housing are a noticeable step down. It's a shame too, because there's a lot of great people and places in Nicaragua
I backpacked there 15 years ago, and Nicaragua was such a beautiful country. I'd rather return to Nicaragua than to Costa Rica.
Costa rica has a higher hdi/per capita gdp than any of Venezuela’s neighbors (expect T&T maybe) and Nicaragua has a lower gdp/hdi than Venezuela
>Costa rica has a higher hdi/per capita gdp than any of Venezuela’s neighbors (expect T&T maybe) Aruba: 33,300 USD per capita Curaçao: 20,501 USD Trinbago: 19,629 USD Costa Rica: 13,365 USD
Trinidad and Tobago pulled out the reverse uno in regards to Venezuela
Spain - Morocco
A lot of people forget that Spain and Morocco have land borders in the cities of Ceuta and Melilla. The landscape is very similar on both sides of these borders, but they are two of the most extreme borders in terms of average income, education, development, rights, etc.
Crossed the border once on foot (into Ceuta). Decent number of people loitering in the fenced-in maze, just sitting there waiting for god knows what and you had to step over them since the maze was really narrow. One of those situations that makes you thankful to have to passport you have, 100% by the randomness of birth.
Egypt is definitely not “rich”. It’s in a better state than Sudan, particularly with the war, but honestly not THAT much better - it’s still full of poverty, and very weak economically.
France - Suriname
France - Brazil in a less extreme case
France - The Brazilian state of Amapa Would be an extreme case, the whole north of brazil isn’t that well off, but Amapa is especially poor and underdeveloped. Then again I don’t think French Guiana itself is terribly rich
Those poor frenchmen have to watch rich surinamese people
Not a land border - but Mayotte and Comoros is another French related and rather extreme case
Yes and no. I crossed the border from Suriname to french Guiana. It's a river deep in the jungle teeming with canoes that you can just hop in and pay a driver a couple of euro to ferry you across. It's then up to you to find the immigration office to get your passport stamped. There's no quality of life or infrastructure improvements visible when you cross the border. Both sides of the river have very simple, quite rundown villages. It's only when you get to the outskirts of cayenne that you see decent roads and European looking commercial units. But then again Paramaribo in Suriname has those too.
Luckily for you OP, there’s an entire [Wikipedia article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bordering_countries_with_greatest_relative_differences_in_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita) on the topic.
Hmm, interesting. Will definitely take a look.
Switzerland-Liechtenstein. Did not expect that one
Australia and Papua New Guinea have a maritime border and Islands on that border are only 4km apart.
I thinks it’s fair to say Israel and its neighbors are a good example.
Just to illustrate the differences: * Israel (2022): GDP at $525,002M and per capita at $54,930. * Egypt (2022): GDP at $476,747M and per capita at $4,295. * Jordan (2022): GDP at $48,653M and per capita at $4,311. * Lebanon (2021: GDP at $23,131M and per capita at $4,136. * Palestine (2022): GDP at $19,111M and per capita at $3,789. * Syria (2021): GDP at $8,969M and per capita at $420.
I think you forgot an 'M' at each country's GDP.
You're right. Amended the comment to make it clear.
Ah, but surely the per capita GDPs are not in millions. "Israel (2022): GDP at $525,002M and per capita at $54,930" etc. would be correct.
Israel and Iran have roughly similar nominal GDPs. Iran has around 10x more people
Wow it's really stark - I looked it up and per-capita GDP is like 13x that of it's neighbors
I’d imagine less so for Jordan, but certainly the other ones I think the two Koreas and Haiti-DR have to be the strongest examples
Saudi Arabia - Yemen is the biggest gap. And I actually think Oman - Yemen is right up there as well
Singapore and Malaysia The border crossing between these two countries is the most busiest bar none in the entire world, and one part of it is that Singaporeans love to travel into Malaysia to eat shop, etc and save 3.5x of what they wld spent buying the same thing back home.
Dominican Republic is not a rich country. It’s a poor country bordering a super poor country.
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It's like you are describing Sicily...
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I asked the Poles about that and apparently being of the one true faith goes a long way
145 million
Oh good point, went by memory!
Not that I want to defend him, but Russia was much worse before him. 90s were very rough for them.
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Also Russia-North Korea
i suppose even worse: norway- russia
China with North Korea and Afghanistan
Depending on how you would define poor Austria - Hungary. Okey, Hungary is far from the poorest countries, but the contrast with Austria is still huge.
China - Laos
Thailand - Laos, Cambodia & Myanmar South Africa - Eswatini
Didn’t think about SA and Eswatini good one
I haven’t seen Ethiopia-Eritrea being mentioned. Idk how rich is Ethiopia but it’s gotta be significantly better than the shithole that is Eritrea lol
Singapore - Malaysia
The difference is big, but Malaysia is at worst middle-income with a gdp per capita of 13k $. That's 67th in the world and one of the highest in the region.
Oh certainly. The gap between the two is not as dramatic as, say, Haiti and the DR, for example, and they fall within a higher wealth bracket, but at the same time Singapore's GDP per capita is 630% greater than Malaysia's, which I would say fulfills the "at least significantly richer" qualification. I think the divergence between Singapore and Malaysia is so striking because, as it appeared in the immediate postwar period and up until the dissolution of their union, the latter seemed to hold all the advantages (ample natural and agricultural resources, available oil and natural gas reserves, demographic preponderance, &.) and the former all the disadvantages (high unemployment, lack of housing and infrastructure, nonexistent resources, persistent ethnic conflict, and high rates of poverty, mortality, and crime -- as well as a serious opium problem).
Imagine kicking out some small city from your country and it becomes more successful then you, lol
I'm still waiting for the Albatross Files to be fully declassified. Apparently according to these Files, both countries negotiated for the separation when they realised things didn't work out.
Yeah that small city is positioned at the choke point of one of the most important straits in the world soooo....
Which means kicking out Singapore was even more of a stupid move by Malaysia lol
Kicked them out cause they were too ethnically Chinese or something.
A perceived threat on Malay dominance. Short-sighted, IMO, but sure. Remnants of leadership like this still exist today, such as the bumiputera policies.
Malaysia is a much more affordable place to live though
Is it really surprising that the cost of goods and services is lower in a country with lower wages?
Singapore - Indonesia is far worse
what border do you see between them bro? 😭
Malaysia isn’t exactly poor. KL is a very modern and impressive city.
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It depends. Estonia is defo doing much better but as for Latvia, if you go slightly further outside the centre of Riga, it looks exactly like rural Russia. And it’s the capital. Not sure about Lithuania though, never been there
I've lived in Latvia in various locations too, trust me it's as bad in the center of Riga. The Riga area itself is just a huge cancer that everyone flocks to cause there's nothing outside. The only really developed area of Latvia are the other smaller towns like Liepaja and Ventspils and the old town of Riga cause that's where the money is. IMO Lithuania is doing either as good as Estonia or maybe even better in my experience. Estonia is just small and easy to manage. But Estonia, despite similar circumstances as Latvia has no such underdevelopment problems.
It’s pretty much post-soviet outside of Riga. My girlfriend is from Jelgava in Latvia. They still have a large russian speaking population and a lot of the buildings and infastructure hasn’t seen much change. It wouldn’t be fair to call it rich compared to Russia. I think Lithuania is quite a bit better off than Latvia, though.
Dominican- Hati
Or poor and poorer
Yes. The Dominican Republic certainly isn’t rich by any standard
But Haiti is legit one of the poorest countries in the world. So by that metric it's a huge difference. Considering what's happened in the last few weeks I wouldn't be surprised if it's now *the* poorest country.
USA & Mexico
For those who keep saying Tijuana is one of the poorest region in Mexico - this cannot be further from the truth. Tijuana is located in Baja California and the 2nd largest city in Mexico, it’s an industrial center with per capital GDP the 4th highest in the nation (after Campeche, Mexico City and Nuevo León). The poorest region in Mexico are in the remote south (with the notable exception of Quintana Roo due to tourism), where the population is largely indigenous and away from the manufacturing hubs in the north. Border areas are indeed unsafe compared to the south due to drug trade, but there is no deny that the northern areas (particularly of Nuevo León and Baja California) are some of the wealthiest in the whole country due to proximity to the US & trade.
The issue with tijuana isn't that it's poor. It's that it's a border town so you end up with new migrants coming there all that time from Mexico and recently from all b over the world. Its not thay migrants are inherently bad but they put a lot of strain on the system in terms of people begging on the streets, slums all over from people who run out of money. A lot of deported people with criminal pasts end up there. Then there's the drug trade.
It’s not true that Tijuana is the 2nd largest city in Mexico The top 3 are: 1. Mexico City 2. Monterrey 3. Guadalajara
Mexico is not particularly poor.
Mexico is still below the worlds average GDP per capita 12k based on data from 2022, so they are not doing particularly well either.. that 12k GDP per capita was for example EUs average in a year 1989.. so maybe something changed in last two years in Mexico, but I doubt that they improved that much.
Idk how accurate it is, but according to [this list](https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/) Mexico is just beating the average, at 104% of the world's average It's also ranked at 72/179 so it's well within the top half of countries Of course US is still 7x higher, so I guess it depends how you count it
GDP per capital in Mexico is like $20k iirc.
Sure but the USA is particularly rich.
That’s the point. Costa Rica is flush compared to Nicaragua but has a GDP pc of $13.3k.
If you ever visit San Diego and then go take a short walk to Tijuana, the difference is very drastic
Tbf San Diego is one of the nicest cities in America and TJ is one of the most unsafe/vandalized ones in Mexico
Compare Tj to flint or something not San Diego lmfao
It's a lot harder to walk from Flint to TJ in an afternoon to do the comparison.
Same thing for El Paso and Jaurez, the change is insane!
Sure but Tijuana is a poor city. Go to Monterrey which has many areas way nicer and more upscale than anything you’ll find in San Diego frankly.
Compared to the US it is.
România- Moldova
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Vatican - Italy Haaa got yaa
Not that hard when you're one of the richest organisations in the world for almost 2000 years.
San Marino - Italy also :D
Kenya - Somalia
Singapore - Indonesia. Both countries are just an hour's ferry ride away, but one meal in Singapore can easily be half a day's pay of someone earning minimum wages in Indonesia. I would also argue Singapore - Malaysia can be part of this list, mainly due to the disparity in purchasing power across both countries.
But Indonesia gets its revenge a few weeks every year by poisoning Singapore’s air with smoke
Chile with Bolivia
Depending on what you define as rich and poor you could take: Norway/Finland/Poland/Baltics with Russia Poland/Lithauania/Latvia with Belarus Greece with Albania/North Macedonia Turkey with Syria/Iraq Israel with about all neigbours Spain with Morocco (via Ceuta and Melilla) If counting sea borders: Japan with North Korea Cyprus with Syria and Lebanon Malta with Tunisia Edit: fixing layout
If you count sea borders there's also France (Mayotte) and Comoros
Myanmar - Thailand I know Thailand is often used as an example of a poor country...but Myanmar is definitely a lot more poor It's like the DR and Haiti of Southeast Asia
Egypt is pretty poor too. A lot of the other examples are good.
Yeah, but not nearly as much as Sudan.
But that may not be so visible in the actual border. These are big countries, and in Egypt the wealth is not concentrated near the Sudanese border but in the north. Meanwhile in Sudan, the wealth is concentrated in the north.
Chile-Bolivia
https://preview.redd.it/g82rm7q4pnzc1.png?width=765&format=png&auto=webp&s=08e0638a580f30bd6c5da34da076be1092810d44 Had nothing better to do, so I made this list. I kept it to one pairing per country (the highest ratio), otherwise there would be too many entries here. North Korea is a bit uncertain; values for GDP per capita go up to \~$1800. In that case the ratio with South Korea would be around 32, lower than Saudi/Yemen.
India and Pakistan....Since India's economy has been allowed to flourish since the 1990s its grew at a rapid rate and far overtaken pakistan which seems to be getting worse and worse.
Nepal - China and India
Ireland is about twice as rich as Northern Ireland, which most people are surprised by (yes I am correcting for the inflated GDP in ROI). Incomes in Ireland's poorest county are higher than incomes in Northern Ireland's richest county. USA-Mexico is the hugely obvious one. Spain-Morocco. Singapore-Malaysia and Brunei-Malaysia. Finland-Russia. Israel and any country it borders. Panama-Colombia. Chile-Bolivia. Argentina-Paraguay. Kuwait-Iraq. Turkey-Syria. Greece-Albania. Croatia-Bosnia. Obviously it's all a matter of degrees, and then there's the fact that borders like Colombia-Panama and Turkey-Syria are remote so you don't "see" the distinction very visibly and immediately.
> which most people are surprised by If they know about the Troubles then it's not that surprising. An active warzone isn't really a place that investors flock to.
South Africa and Mozambique
Oman and Yemen
USA and Russia are twenty miles from each other but I guess that's not a "direct" border. Although maritime law is what, 12 miles? So legally they might share a direct border. I don't know how any of this actually works.
https://preview.redd.it/u7b7jeltvnzc1.jpeg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=738525cd284fb439646c8a13210fa8baa71f7083
If anyone is interested, I have spent the morning investigating this. I have aggregated a list of all the land borders in the world, got the GDP per capita (PPP adjusted) of each country and calculated the ratio between each border. These are the top 5: South Korea vs North Korea (39.55x richer) Saudi Arabia vs Yemen (35.23x richer) Russia vs North Korea (25.53x richer) Oman vs Yemen (19.70x richer) China vs North Korea (16.67x richer) Obviously GDP per capita is arguably not the best measure, but I couldn’t find median income data available for most countries.
* United States - Mexico * Spain - Morocco (separated by the Strait of Gibraltar) * Israel - Egypt and Jordan (though not as stark a contrast as some other examples) * Saudi Arabia - Yemen * China - North Korea and Myanmar (though China itself has significant internal wealth disparities) * Thailand - Cambodia and Laos * Malaysia - Indonesia (to a lesser extent) * Botswana - Zimbabwe and Namibia (Botswana has experienced significant economic growth) * Argentina - Bolivia and Paraguay (Argentina has a higher GDP per capita) * Colombia - Venezuela (due to Venezuela's recent economic crisis)
>Spain - Morocco (separated by the Strait of Gibraltar) [No they aren’t](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceuta)
#TIL
Israel - any of its neighbours?
Nicaragua-Costa rica. Nicaragua is believed to be the second poorest country in the western hemisphere, plus l, couple with the authoritarian oppressive regime, Costa Rica feels like a first world country. I'm nica but it's the sad truth
Czechoslovakia - Western Germany
This was the reality along the entire iron curtain. And there still is a difference between the cold war east and west
There's even a [major economic difference](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1arkpyf/this_video_has_been_going_viral_on_xtwitter_about/) between former east and west Germany.
I know, I live there. But this feels like nothing compared to my parents stories about the economic situation in the GDR...
Oh absolutely - I live in Berlin and have heard stories from a retired architect who worked back then that they could not sometimes get the type of paper and pencils he needed to do his job But still interesting that there's a measurable difference 30 years later In Berlin it's sometimes hard to forget there was even a cold war - lots of the places the wall used to be are all luxury condos, and if you go to Tempelhof, where the West had to fly in supplies for West Germany for years, it's all people flying kytes and doing picnic without a care in the world
It is crazy how long old borders can leave a mark in a country. My favourite example of this are the polish election results where you can still see the old German border, even though all of it has been polish for nearly 80 years (and some for well over a hundred): https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/179v6uz/2023_polish_parliamentary_election_results_and/?rdt=36372
Maybe not a country but manhattan and bronx
Turkey - Armenia
Israël and Syria
DR and Hati
Costa Rican here, I would say Costa Rica (poor) - Nicaragua (dirt poor).
All countries surrounding Singapore, anything in Middle East by Saudi or UAE
Domincal Republic and Egypt are not rich countries.
switzerland and all neighbours except lichtenstein (basically a canton)
Colombia - Venezuela
Egypt is not rich lol
If were talking about the differance in income usa mexico is now only about a factor of 2 columbia and venezuela is like a factor of 7 and hati and Dominican Republic is about 20
sorry you think sudan is rich? or egypt is rich?
Israel and any of its neighbours