Dividing the terrestrial world into the “Global North” and the “Global South” is becoming increasingly common. Simple versions of this “two worlds” model have a relatively clean north/south division, with only Australia and New Zealand falling out of place as southern outliers of the North. The Wikipedia map posted below, however, includes a few additional exceptions. Israel is mapped as an exclave of the North in the red expanse of the South, as are France’s overseas departments (of which only Guiana in South American is easily seen on the map).
Following UNCTAD (UN Trade and Development), the Wikipedia article on the North/South division specifies that the North constitutes the wealthy part of the world and the South the poor part. As is stated in the first paragraph:
Most of the Global South’s countries are commonly identified as lacking in their standard of living, which includes having lower incomes, high levels of poverty, high population growth rates, inadequate housing, limited educational opportunities, and deficient health systems, among other issues. Additionally, these countries’ cities are characterized by their poor infrastructure.
Mapped and defined in such a manner, the North/South division poorly reflects reality. Some of the world’s richest and most developed countries are placed in the poor part of the world. Singapore, for example, is explicitly included in the Global South on the Wikipedia map, yet it is arguably the world’s richest country. If one excludes two micro-states with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants (Monaco and Liechtenstein), Singapore has the highest per capita GDP (in PPP) according to the International Monetary Fund. Other wealthy and highly developed counties are also mapped within the Global South, as can be seen in the table posted below. Similar but less extreme inaccuracies are found on the northern side of the divide. Moldova and Kosovo may not fall among the least-developed sovereign states, but they are far from wealthy by global standards. In terms of per capita GDP (in PPP), they rank in the 94th and 95th positions out of 190 tabulated countries and dependencies (again, according to the IMF).
The mapping of China within the Global South is particularly misleading. The World Bank ranks China as an “upper-middle-income” country, while the Asian News Network recently reported that the country “is on track to reach high-income status within one to two years.” If classifying China as a relatively poor country with inferior infrastructure is unwarranted, putting Taiwan in the same category is absurd. Presumably, Wikipedia maps Taiwan as part of the Global South because it considers the island part of China, which is only true in the realm of diplomatic fiction. The People’s Republic of China, moreover, is not exactly a singular entity in terms of economic development. Its “special administrative regions,” Hong Kong and Macau, are fully developed by any criteria. China’s entire southern coastal zone, stretching from Guangdong to Jiangsu, is a core region of the world economy. It is also home to hundreds of billionaires. Although a relatively poor interior province of China like Gansu can arguably be placed in the Global South, the country’s coastal belt is a much better fit for the Global North.
The global North/South division stems from the 1980 Brandt Report, issued by the Independent Commission on International Development Issues. The map that the commission produced, dividing the globe into the “developed countries” and the “developing countries,” made much more sense at the time than it does today. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, the “developed world” of the Brandt Reports was changed to the “Global North” by removing the former-Soviet states of Central Asia and the Caucasus. South Korea was later transferred from the South to the North, reflecting its successful economic development. Wikipedia’s placement of Fiji in the developed North, however, is inexplicable. So too is the classification of the Canary Islands, the Azores, and Madeira in the South. Slotting European Turkey (Türkiye) in the North and Asiatic Turkey in the South reflects continental rather than developmental differences. The map, in short, is a conceptual mess.
The other maps of the “Global South” that appeared at the top of a Google image search are reproduced at the end of this post. The first, from Britannic, is essentially the same as the Wikipedia map of the Brandt Line. The second, from Maps of the World, puts all of Turkey in the North, along with Taiwan and France’s overseas departments. The Shutterstock map follows the Wikipedia model but divides the South into continental divisions. It seems to put Israel in the South, but the small size of the country makes it difficult to be sure. The Institute for Political and International Studies map follows the Brandt line but in a clumsy manner, placing much of the southwestern United States in the “Poor South” and part of North Korea as well as most Melanesian countries in the rich North. It also depicts a waterway between Mexico and Guatemala and apparently cedes Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ecuador, Haiti, El Salvador, Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Slovenia to the sea. The Sight map crudely divides North from South along straight lines, cutting through national territories. It also puts much of North Korea, one of the Solomon Islands, Jamaica, Vanuatu, and Fiji in the Global North.
I find it interesting that the global divisions between “the North” and “the South” retains currency even though it poorly reflects actual economic and developmental differences. Such inaccuracies partly stem from intellectual laziness, reflecting a failure to update one’s mental map as global circumstances change. It might also indicate bias against certain parts of the world.
