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By net wealth (assets - liabilities). Here's a Wikipedia list (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_wea...) based on the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report (https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us/en/reports-research/g...). You're right that it's not even close, the US is almost twice as rich as China in the #2 spot.

Add in underfunded liabilities and lets see what it shows us. Of course if a country doesn't require all liabilities to be counted it's going to show up at the top of the list.

By the most simple definition of the term: total wealth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_wea...

Well if you have to pick something, the US has the highest GDP in the world.

There are large countries (India, China). There are rich countries (Germany, Japan, the UK). The US is the only large, rich country.