If California were its own country, its economy would now rank as the fourth largest of any nation in the globe, Gov. Gavin Newsom said this week.

California has overtaken Japan and is now the fourth largest economy in the world, according to newly released data cited by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office. The data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the U.

The Californian economy has overtaken Japan's to become the fourth-largest in the world by gross domestic product (GDP). That is according to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA),