The Network of Embassies

Also published in Linkedln


In this globalized world, ability to lobby and influence is all too important. No, I am not talking about individuals. Rather the context is national. A simple metric to assess the efficacy of international relations is the number of embassies that a country has overseas. This is not a straightforward exercise. This website provides country wise embassy listing from where a massive data compilation work ensued. Here is the result:

PS: It must be mentioned that we have not considered all countries for this analysis due to lack of data on small countries.

The world can be grouped in several categories and G-7 emerged as the most powerful when viewed from international relations point of view. The seven countries comprising US, UK, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and Canada together have an astounding 1,109 embassies all over the world yielding an average of 158 embassies per country! Together, they account for nearly half of global GDP, 37% of global trade and just 12% of world population. While the usual suspect is US to be having the largest number of embassies, I was proven wrong. And the top slot went to surprisingly Germany with 181 embassies, though the country accounted only for 5% of global GDP and just 1% of world population. US and UK followed with 172 embassies while Canada was at the bottom of the G-7 table with 123 embassies.

The next powerful group emerged to be BRICS comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa with average number of embassies at 140, not too far from G-7. As a block, BRICS account for 22% global GDP, 19% of global trade and an astounding 50% of world population. Here I was right about the usual suspect of China leading the league table at 162 embassies followed by India at 156. Brazil bottomed the table at 118 embassies.

An expanded form of G-7 is the G-20 with 20 leading nations drawn from OECD and emerging markets. They have an average of 131 embassies per country and account for 80% of world GDP, 67% of trade and 71% of total population, by far the most powerful group in economic terms. Germany leads the table (as expected now) and Mexico trails with just 77 embassies.

Europe, with 27 countries, post a decent average of 115 embassies per country with Germany being at the top. As a block, they account for 27% of GDP, 37% of trade and 11% of population. Several small countries in Europe has impressive embassy penetration. Examples include Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Greece, Czech, Poland, Finland, Romania, and Norway. All these counties have embassies ranging from 169(Netherlands) to 100 (Norway), a significant feat for countries that account for just under 1% of GDP, Trade and Population!.

Asia Pacific comprising 17 countries suffers from a poor average of 82 embassies per country though they account for 30% of GDP and Trade and a significant 62% of world population. With China leading the table, North Korea is the underdog with just 30 embassies.

South America with 8 countries post an average of 70 embassies per country and is low on their share of GDP (6%), Trade (6%) and Population (3%). While Brazil is at the top, Bolivia is at the bottom. Middle East and Africa is the least active region in terms of international relations. Though as a block it is as big as G-20, with 21 countries, at just 70 embassies per country it has a poor embassy penetration. Egypt tops the table at 122 embassies and Bahrain bottoms the list at 25 embassies. As we guessed, its share in global GDP (5%) and trade (7%) is quite low though it accounts for 12% of world population.

You need on ground presence to advocate points of view and garner international support. The best tool is to have embassy presence and active work carried by them. The poor embassy penetration by Middle East, South America and Asia Pacific can lie at the root of many misconceptions about external image of these blocks as regions gripped by terrorism, civil wars, and poverty. Alternatively, the strong embassy penetration of G-7 can present a picture of stability, tranquility and advancement.  Netherlands can be an astounding example with 169 embassies, nearly that of US, though it accounts for only 1.1% of GDP, 3.7% of trade and just 0.3% of world population compared to US that accounts for 23% of GDP, 12% of trade and 5% of population.

Its time to lobby on ground!

The author thanks Jenivivu Lasrado, Rakesh Khanna, and Karthik Ramesh for data assistance 

	Country	No. of Embassies	2013 GDP (Current Prices, USD Billons)	Population (2013, Millions)	Total Trade (2013) US Dollars at current prices and current exchange rates in Billions
1	Germany	181	3636.0	80.6	2641.6
2	United Kingdom	172	2535.8	64.1	1196.9
3	United States of America	172	16799.7	316.1	3908.7
4	Netherlands	169	800.0	16.8	1261.6
5	Italy	165	2072.0	59.8	995.1
6	France	163	2737.4	66.0	1260.7
7	China	162	9181.4	1357.4	4159.0
8	Belgium	159	506.6	11.2	920.1
9	India	156	1870.7	1252.1	779.3
10	Switzerland	156	650.8	8.1	430.1
11	Russia	147	2118.0	143.5	866.3
12	Austria	143	415.4	8.5	356.9
13	Greece	135	241.8	11.0	98.7
14	Japan	133	4901.5	127.3	1548.3
15	Czech Republic	129	198.3	10.5	305.0
16	Poland	125	516.1	38.5	407.2
17	Finland	124	256.9	5.4	151.8
18	Romania	123	189.7	20.0	139.3
19	Canada	123	1825.1	35.2	932.6
20	Egypt	122	271.4	82.1	86.8
21	Turkey	122	827.2	74.9	403.4
22	South Africa	119	350.8	53.0	222.3
23	Spain	119	1358.7	46.6	655.5
24	Brazil	118	2242.9	200.4	492.6
25	Cuba	115	73.0	11.3	20.4
26	South Korea (Republic of Korea)	110	1221.8	50.2	1075.2
27	Holy See (Vatican)	110	NA	NA	NA
28	Pakistan	103	238.7	182.1	69.8
29	Norway	100	511.3	5.1	244.2
30	Indonesia	98	870.3	249.9	205.2
31	Australia	97	1505.3	23.1	494.8
32	Denmark	95	331.0	5.6	206.9
33	Ukraine	94	177.8	45.5	85.1
34	Saudi Arabia	93	745.3	28.8	544.1
35	Iran	90	366.3	77.4	131.0
36	Nigeria	87	286.5	173.6	159.0
37	Bulgaria	86	53.0	7.3	63.8
38	Lebanon	84	44.3	4.5	27.2
39	Malaysia	83	312.4	29.7	434.3
40	Algeria	82	206.1	39.2	120.0
41	Sweden	82	557.9	9.6	327.5
42	Hungary	81	132.4	9.9	208.1
43	Morocco	79	105.1	33.0	66.9
44	Taiwan	79	489.2	23.4	NA
45	New Zealand	78	181.3	4.5	79.1
46	Portugal	78	220.0	10.5	138.3
47	Mexico	77	1258.5	122.3	771.2
48	Argentina	77	488.2	41.4	97.4
49	Israel	73	291.5	8.1	141.7
50	Uruguay	73	56.3	3.4	13.5
51	Ireland	71	217.9	4.6	179.7
52	Chile	69	277.0	17.6	155.9
53	Kuwait	69	185.3	3.4	144.4
54	United Arab Emirates	69	396.2	9.3	630.0
55	Colombia	69	381.8	48.3	65.8
56	Ecuador	69	94.1	4.3	27.8
57	Iraq	68	229.3	33.4	150.6
58	Thailand	66	387.2	67.0	479.3
59	Luxembourg	65	59.8	0.5	45.1
60	Philippines	64	272.0	98.4	121.8
61	Croatia	64	58.1	15.7	24.8
62	Serbia	63	42.5	7.2	20.4
63	Vietnam	60	170.6	89.7	264.1
64	Qatar	58	202.6	2.2	171.8
65	Libya	57	67.6	6.2	70.5
66	Costa Rica	56	49.6	4.9	17.5
67	Sudan	55	70.1	38.0	17.0
68	Singapore	54	295.7	5.4	783.3
69	Jordan	50	33.9	6.5	29.8
70	Syria	48	73.7	22.8	7.4
71	Sri Lanka	45	65.8	20.5	28.0
72	Kenya	43	45.1	44.4	22.2
73	Nepal	43	19.3	27.8	7.5
74	Venezuela	42	374.0	30.4	142.5
75	Bolivia	42	29.8	10.7	12.5
76	Yemen	41	39.2	24.4	21.7
77	Zimbabwe	41	13.0	14.1	7.8
78	Cyprus	39	21.8	1.1	8.3
79	Bangladesh	37	141.3	156.6	65.5
80	Brunei	34	16.2	0.4	13.3
81	North Korea	30	12.4	24.9	8.5
82	Bahrain	25	32.2	1.3	35.3
		Total	71602.7	6130.7	33724.2