California Leapfrogs France to Claim the World's 6th Largest Economy

Los Angeles, CA - Sa·cré bleu! California is now the sixth largest economy in the world, surpassing France to move up the ladder.

The nation’s most populous state, California’s economic growth far outpaced the national average while also benefitting from the dollar strengthening against foreign currency, according to a report by the California Department of Finance. With a gross domestic product of $2.46 trillion, California leapfrogged over both Brazil and France to go from 8th place in 2014 to sixth in 2015.

“This is the result of both good growth in California and exchange-rate movements of the U.S. dollar versus other currencies,” Irena Asmundson, chief economist in the California Department of Finance told Bloomberg.

According to Bloomberg, California is home to four of the 10 largest companies in the world, including Facebook and Google parent company, Alphabet Inc.

Thanks to robust tech, agricultural and manufacturing industries, California created more jobs than the next two closest states combine last year, a fact California Gov. Jerry Brown snarkily pointed out to Florida Governor Rick Scott when Scott tried to recruit California companies east on the promise of lower taxes in May.

Related: California's Governor Throws Shade at Florida's

“I’m writing to welcome you back to California – a state that in the last year has added more jobs than Florida and Texas combined,” Brown wrote to Scott last month. “Rick, a fact you’d like to ignore: California is the 7th largest economic power in the world. We’re competing with nations like Brazil and France, not states like Florida."

Now that California has bragging rights over Florida, Brazil and France, the next closest rival is the United Kingdom, the world’s fifth largest economy.

The world’s ten largest economies are:

1. United States of America
2. China
3. Japan
4. Germany
5. United Kingdom
6. California
7. France
8. India
9. Italy
10. Brazil

Photo by kla4067 on flickr.com