World's poorest country

[Yai]

What, exactly, is the poorest country in the world ? I have searched on the internet but it varys on different websites. Some say Siera Leone, others Ethiopa, others Bangladesh and also Afghanistan. So which is it ?

[TommyC]

So therefore it all depends what your criteria are for "the world's poorest country" ..? Some UN surveys / statistical reports will use average or maximum income per head of population as the line of judgement, while other (predominantly economic) bodies may use the gross domestic product of the state as the deciding factor, and others again may use simply the overall number of people estimated to be living below the government-determined "poverty line" for that country. And there are various other minor criteria too, used for different reasons by different organisations, so you need to define your terms a little more closely to get any meaningful answer to your question.

[Pickle]

I think Haiti may well be taking over the title of world's poorest country if you use the poverty line as an indicator. Before the recent troubles 80% of the population lived below the poverty line as opposed to 36% in Bangladesh, 68% in Sierra Leone and 45% in Ethiopia(don't know about Afghanistan). [All figures from CIA World Factbook]

[Caladon]

cia factbook, i have that. but come on, its the cia, how reliable is it? i mean honestly. the usa gets their news via cnn! columbia (not the detective in the mac and green cig) is pretty poor. but is the question of, as the last guy sayed the poverty line or do you mean wealth of the country itself?

[mikewith]

(No way Colombia would be listed as one of the world's poorest countries!)