Starbucks index: Facts aren't all they seem!

A quick glance at this year's Finder's Starbucks Index would show you that the most expensive place to get a Starbucks 'tall' latte is Denmark, at $6.05 in U.S. dollars and the least expensive is Turkey, at $1.78. But those figures are, in reality, only for visitors.

The per capita household income of Danes is just shy of $40,000, while that of Turks is just over $3,000. For a Dane, a latte a day would eat up about 6% of the year's income, while for a Turk it would take nearly 22% of his earnings.

So, from the point of view of the person who lives there, and not the traveler, that latte is nearly four times as expensive in Turkey than in Denmark!

The Finder's Index tracks the price of that latte in 76 countries across the globe as an informal comparison of prices, but since it doesn't include cost-of-living or income data for the countries involved, it's mainly of use to visitors.

The most expensive ten, in raw numbers:

1. Denmark      Copenhagen     6.05
2. Switzerland         Aarau          5.94
3. Finland          Vantaa          5.4
4. Macau          Macau          5.21
5. Luxembourg       Luxembourg      5.18
6. Norway          Oslo          5.14
7. Hong Kong        Hong Kong        4.6
8. Singapore          Singapore          4.5
9. Germany          Munich          4.39
10. Russia          Moscow          4.35

And the cheapest:

1. Philippines  Quezon City      $2.69
2. Hungary          Budapest          $2.62
3. Brazil          Sao Paulo          $2.43
4. Bulgaria          Sofia          $2.20
5. South Africa       Johannesburg    $2.18
6. Mexico       Mexico City       $2.15
7. Argentina          Buenos Aires     $2.14
8. Colombia    Bogota $2.04
9. Egypt          Cairo (outskirts) $1.95
10. Turkey        Istanbul $1.78