Countries by Total fisheries production (metric tons)

Ranking 2023

Analysis

Total fisheries production measures the volume of aquatic species caught by a country for all commercial, industrial, recreational and subsistence purposes; the harvest from mariculture, aquaculture and other kinds of fish farming is also included. The unit is metric tons of absolute production volume, where higher values indicate greater output. Data comes from the World Bank World Development Indicators (indicator code ER.FSH.PROD.MT) for the reference year 2023. The dataset covers 215 countries, all of which have data from within the last seven years, and 100 percent of datapoints are classified as official-quality figures. The viability checks identified 20 extreme outliers at the 3-sigma threshold, driven primarily by China's outsized values, and the range spans from 0 to 91,701,645.60 metric tons — a spread the checks describe as 999 percent. Average year-over-year volatility across the dataset is 13.3 percent, well within the 50 percent threshold for reliability.

The top of the ranking is heavily concentrated among large Asian nations and major maritime economies. China (Rank 1) produces 91,701,645 metric tons, more than four times the output of second-ranked Indonesia at 23,182,258 metric tons. India ranks third at 17,499,108 metric tons, followed by Viet Nam at 8,796,098 metric tons and the Russian Federation at 5,763,301 metric tons. The United States (Rank 6, 5,080,061 metric tons) and Bangladesh (Rank 7, 4,915,240 metric tons) sit close together, with Norway (Rank 8, 4,196,830 metric tons), the Philippines (Rank 9, 4,101,865 metric tons), and Chile (Rank 10, 4,099,407 metric tons) rounding out the top ten. High rankings across this group reflect combinations of long coastlines, extensive inland fisheries, and large-scale aquaculture sectors.

Several notable placements appear in the middle of the ranking. The Faroe Islands (Rank 28, 890,713 metric tons) — a small island territory — sits just above Korea, Dem. People's Rep. (Rank 29, 888,830 metric tons) and outranks Canada (Rank 30, 872,801 metric tons), a much larger country by land area and population. Nauru (Rank 88, 103,233 metric tons) and Kiribati (Rank 58, 239,183 metric tons) are small island nations that rank above much larger continental states, reflecting access to expansive exclusive economic zones in the Pacific. Landlocked countries with notable production include Uganda (Rank 32, 846,493 metric tons), Uzbekistan (Rank 70, 195,883 metric tons), and Zambia (Rank 71, 194,653 metric tons), whose values reflect inland freshwater fisheries. At the lower end, small territories and landlocked microstates such as Bermuda (Rank 199, 395 metric tons), Bhutan (Rank 208, 52 metric tons), and Gibraltar (Rank 209, 1 metric ton) report negligible output.

Several limitations apply to this metric. Total production volume does not distinguish between wild-capture and aquaculture output, meaning countries with intensive fish farming can rank alongside or above those with large wild-catch industries for different structural reasons. Reporting reliability may vary across countries, particularly where subsistence and recreational catches are difficult to monitor. The inclusion of mariculture and all aquaculture types means the metric reflects food system structure as much as natural resource extraction. Countries with large exclusive economic zones but low domestic processing capacity may report catches differently than countries with vertically integrated industries. The five countries reporting exactly zero production — Andorra, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Mongolia, and San Marino — are all landlocked with no coastal or significant inland fishery, which is consistent with the data but worth noting as a structural floor rather than a measurement gap.

Methodology

Data is drawn from the World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code ER.FSH.PROD.MT, for the reference year 2023. As defined in the source note: total fisheries production measures the volume of aquatic species caught by a country for all commercial, industrial, recreational and subsistence purposes; the harvest from mariculture, aquaculture and other kinds of fish farming is also included. Values are expressed in metric tons as absolute figures. The dataset covers 215 countries, all with data from within the last seven years (100 percent recency). All 215 datapoints are classified as official quality, exceeding the 70 percent threshold. Viability checks identified 20 extreme outliers at the 3-sigma threshold. The production range spans 0 to 91,701,645.60 metric tons, a 999 percent spread. Average year-over-year change is 13.3 percent, within the 50 percent volatility threshold. No microstates were excluded from the dataset. Ranking is by absolute production volume; higher values indicate greater total fisheries output.

Sources

• World Bank