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If Region Was Country, It Would Be As Big as Portugal or New Zealand

Were Northern Virginia its own independent country – and let’s not give regional leaders any ideas – it would have the world’s 48th largest economy.

That’s according to new figures from the Northern Virginia Regional Commission, which calculates the total annual gross domestic product of the counties and cities comprising Northern Virginia at $276 billion.

That would rank Northern Virginia just below the Czech Republic and Finland and just above Iraq, Portugal and New Zealand in terms of economic output, according to a country-by-country ranking at worldometers.info.

Fairfax County accounts for the largest chunk of Northern Virginia’s GDP, at $134 billion.

According to the Northern Virginia Regional Commission data, Northern Virginia represents 29 percent of the commonwealth’s total population but nearly 42 percent of economic output. Since 2010, Northern Virginia has accounted for 45 percent of the commonwealth’s population growth.

For details on the Northern Virginia Regional Commission data, see the Website at https://bit.ly/4aoNORZ.

About the Author

  • A Northern Virginia native, Scott McCaffrey has four decades of reporting, editing and newsroom experience in the local area plus Florida, South Carolina and the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. He spent 26 years as editor of the Sun Gazette newspaper chain. For Local News Now, he covers government and civic issues in Arlington, Fairfax County and Falls Church.