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World Data
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Background:
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Globally,
the 20th century was marked by: (a) two devastating world wars; (b) the
Great Depression of the 1930s; (c) the end of vast colonial empires; (d)
rapid advances in science and technology, from the first airplane flight
at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina (US) to the landing on the moon; (e) the
Cold War between the Western alliance and the Warsaw Pact nations; (f) a
sharp rise in living standards in North America, Europe, and Japan; (g)
increased concerns about the environment, including loss of forests,
shortages of energy and water, the decline in biological diversity, and
air pollution; (h) the onset of the AIDS epidemic; and (i) the ultimate
emergence of the US as the only world superpower. The planet's
population continues to explode: from 1 billion in 1820, to 2 billion in
1930, 3 billion in 1960, 4 billion in 1974, 5 billion in 1988, and 6
billion in 2000. For the 21st century, the continued exponential growth
in science and technology raises both hopes (e.g., advances in medicine)
and fears (e.g., development of even more lethal weapons of war). |
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Map references:
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Physical
Map of the World, Political Map of the World, Standard Time Zones of the
World |
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Area:
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total: 510.072 million
sq km
land:
148.94 million sq km
water:
361.132 million sq km
note:
70.8% of the world's surface is water, 29.2% is land |
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Area - comparative:
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land area
about 16 times the size of the US |
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Land boundaries:
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the land boundaries in the world total 250,708 km
(not counting shared boundaries twice); two nations, China and Russia,
each border 14 other countries
note: 44
nations and other areas are landlocked, these include: af,
Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bhutan, Bolivia,
Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Czech
Republic, Ethiopia, Holy See (Vatican City), Hungary, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malawi,
Mali, Moldova, Mongolia, Nepal, Niger, Paraguay, Rwanda, San Marino,
Serbia, Slovakia, Swaziland, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan,
Uganda, Uzbekistan, West Bank, Zambia, Zimbabwe; two of these,
Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan, are doubly landlocked |
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Coastline:
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356,000 km
note: 94
nations and other entities are islands that border no other countries,
they include: American Samoa, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba,
Ashmore and Cartier Islands, The Bahamas, Bahrain, Baker Island,
Barbados, Bermuda, Bouvet Island, British Indian Ocean Territory,
British Virgin Islands, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Christmas Island,
Clipperton Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Comoros, Cook Islands, Coral
Sea Islands, Cuba, Cyprus, Dominica, Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas),
Faroe Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, French Southern and Antarctic
Lands, Greenland, Grenada, Guam, Guernsey, Heard Island and McDonald
Islands, Howland Island, Iceland, Isle of Man, Jamaica, Jan Mayen,
Japan, Jarvis Island, Jersey, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Kiribati,
Madagascar, Maldives, Malta, Marshall Islands, Martinique, Mauritius,
Mayotte, Federated States of Micronesia, Midway Islands, Montserrat,
Nauru, Navassa Island, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Norfolk Island,
Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Palmyra Atoll, Paracel Islands,
Philippines, Pitcairn Islands, Puerto Rico, Reunion, Saint Barthelemy,
Saint Helena, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Pierre and
Miquelon, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Sao Tome and
Principe, Seychelles, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Georgia and the
South Sandwich Islands, Spratly Islands, Sri Lanka, Svalbard, Tokelau,
Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tuvalu, Vanuatu,
Virgin Islands, Wake Island, Wallis and Futuna, Taiwan |
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Maritime claims:
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a variety
of situations exist, but in general, most countries make the following
claims measured from the mean low-tide baseline as described in the 1982
UN Convention on the Law of the Sea: territorial sea - 12 nm, contiguous
zone - 24 nm, and exclusive economic zone - 200 nm; additional zones
provide for exploitation of continental shelf resources and an exclusive
fishing zone; boundary situations with neighboring states prevent many
countries from extending their fishing or economic zones to a full 200
nm |
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Climate:
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a wide
equatorial band of hot and humid tropical climates - bordered north and
south by subtropical temperate zones - that separate two large areas of
cold and dry polar climates |
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Terrain:
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the
greatest ocean depth is the Mariana Trench at 10,924 m in the Pacific
Ocean |
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Elevation extremes:
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lowest point: Bentley
Subglacial Trench -2,540 m
note:
in the oceanic realm, Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench is the
lowest point, lying -10,924 m below the surface of the Pacific Ocean
highest point:
Mount Everest 8,850 m |
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Natural resources:
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the rapid
depletion of nonrenewable mineral resources, the depletion of forest
areas and wetlands, the extinction of animal and plant species, and the
deterioration in air and water quality (especially in Eastern Europe,
the former USSR, and China) pose serious long-term problems that
governments and peoples are only beginning to address |
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Land use:
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arable land: 13.31%
permanent crops:
4.71%
other:
81.98% (2005) |
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Irrigated land:
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2,770,980
sq km (2003) |
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Natural hazards:
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large
areas subject to severe weather (tropical cyclones), natural disasters
(earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions) |
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Environment - current issues:
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large
areas subject to overpopulation, industrial disasters, pollution (air,
water, acid rain, toxic substances), loss of vegetation (overgrazing,
deforestation, desertification), loss of wildlife, soil degradation,
soil depletion, erosion; global warming becoming a greater concern |
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Geography - note:
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the world
is now thought to be about 4.55 billion years old, just about one-third
of the 13.7-billion-year age estimated for the universe |
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Population:
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6,602,224,175 (July 2007 est.) |
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Age structure:
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0-14
years: 27.4% (male
931,551,498/female 875,646,416)
15-64 years:
65.1% (male 2,174,605,518/female 2,124,494,703)
65 years and over:
7.5% (male 217,451,123/female 278,474,917) (2007 est.) |
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Median age:
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total: 28 years
male:
27.4 years
female:
28.7 years (2007 est.) |
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Population growth rate:
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1.167%
(2007 est.) |
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Birth rate:
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20.09
births/1,000 population (2007 est.) |
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Death rate:
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8.37
deaths/1,000 population (2007 est.) |
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Sex ratio:
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at
birth: 1.07
male(s)/female
under 15 years:
1.064 male(s)/female
15-64 years:
1.024 male(s)/female
65 years and over:
0.781 male(s)/female
total population:
1.014 male(s)/female (2007 est.) |
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Infant mortality rate:
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total: 43.52
deaths/1,000 live births
male:
46.32 deaths/1,000 live births
female:
40.52 deaths/1,000 live births (2007 est.) |
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Life expectancy at birth:
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total population: 65.82
years
male:
63.89 years
female:
67.84 years (2007 est.) |
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Total fertility rate:
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2.59
children born/woman (2007 est.) |
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HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate:
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NA |
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HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS:
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NA |
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HIV/AIDS - deaths:
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NA |
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Religions:
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Christians
33.03% (of which Roman Catholics 17.33%, Protestants 5.8%, Orthodox
3.42%, Anglicans 1.23%), Muslims 20.12%, Hindus 13.34%, Buddhists 5.89%,
Sikhs 0.39%, Jews 0.23%, other religions 12.61%, non-religious 12.03%,
atheists 2.36% (2004 est.) |
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Languages:
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Mandarin Chinese 13.69%, Spanish 5.05%, English
4.84%, Hindi 2.82%, Portuguese 2.77%, Bengali 2.68%, Russian 2.27%,
Japanese 1.99%, Standard German 1.49%, Wu Chinese 1.21% (2004 est.)
note:
percents are for "first language" speakers only and therefore do not add
to 100% |
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Literacy:
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definition: age 15 and
over can read and write
total population:
82%
male:
87%
female:
77%
note:
over two-thirds of the world's 785 million illiterate adults are found
in only eight countries (India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria,
Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Egypt); of all the illiterate adults in the
world, two-thirds are women; extremely low literacy rates are
concentrated in three regions, South and West Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa,
and the Arab states, where around one-third of the men and half of all
women are illiterate (2005 est.) |
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Administrative divisions:
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265
nations, dependent areas, and other entities |
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Legal system:
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all
members of the UN are parties to the statute that established the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) or World Court |
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Economy - overview:
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Global
output rose by 5% in 2006, led by China (10.5%), India (8.5%), and
Russia (6.6%). The 14 other successor nations of the USSR and the other
old Warsaw Pact nations again experienced widely divergent growth rates;
the three Baltic nations continued as strong performers, in the 7%-10%
range of growth. Growth results posted by the major industrial countries
varied from no gain for Italy to a strong gain by the United States
(3.4%). The developing nations also varied in their growth results, with
many countries facing population increases that erode gains in output.
Externally, the nation-state, as a bedrock economic-political
institution, is steadily losing control over international flows of
people, goods, funds, and technology. Internally, the central government
often finds its control over resources slipping as separatist regional
movements - typically based on ethnicity - gain momentum, e.g., in many
of the successor states of the former Soviet Union, in the former
Yugoslavia, in India, in Iraq, in Indonesia, and in Canada. Externally,
the central government is losing decisionmaking powers to international
bodies, notably the EU. In Western Europe, governments face the
difficult political problem of channeling resources away from welfare
programs in order to increase investment and strengthen incentives to
seek employment. The addition of 80 million people each year to an
already overcrowded globe is exacerbating the problems of pollution,
desertification, underemployment, epidemics, and famine. Because of
their own internal problems and priorities, the industrialized countries
devote insufficient resources to deal effectively with the poorer areas
of the world, which, at least from an economic point of view, are
becoming further marginalized. The introduction of the euro as the
commo_enn currency of much of Western Europe in January 1999, while paving
the way for an integrated economic powerhouse, poses economic risks
because of varying levels of income and cultural and political
differences among the participating nations. The terrorist attacks on
the US on 11 September 2001 accentuated a further growing risk to global
prosperity, illustrated, for example, by the reallocation of resources
away from investment to anti-terrorist programs. The opening of war in
March 2003 between a US-led coalition and Iraq added new uncertainties
to global economic prospects. After the coalition victory, the complex
political difficulties and the high economic cost of establishing
domestic order in Iraq became major global problems that continued
through 2006. |
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GDP (purchasing power parity):
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GWP (gross
world product): $65.95 trillion (2006 est.) |
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GDP (official exchange rate):
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$46.76
trillion (2006 est.) |
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GDP - real growth rate:
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5.3% (2006
est.) |
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GDP - per capita (PPP):
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$10,200
(2006 est.) |
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GDP - composition by sector:
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agriculture: 4%
industry:
32%
services:
64% (2004 est.) |
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Labor force:
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3.001
billion (2005 est.) |
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Labor force - by occupation:
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agriculture: 40.7%
industry:
20.5%
services:
38.8% (2002 est.) |
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Unemployment rate:
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30%
combined unemployment and underemployment in many non-industrialized
countries; developed countries typically 4%-12% unemployment (2006 est.)
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Household income or consumption by percentage share:
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lowest 10%: 2.5%
highest 10%:
29.9% (2002 est.) |
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Inflation rate (consumer prices):
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developed
countries 1% to 4% typically; developing countries 5% to 20% typically;
national inflation rates vary widely in individual cases, from declining
prices in Japan to hyperinflation in one Third World countries
(Zimbabwe); inflation rates have declined for most countries for the
last several years, held in check by increasing international
competition from several low wage countries (2005 est.) |
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Industries:
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dominated
by the onrush of technology, especially in computers, robotics,
telecommunications, and medicines and medical equipment; most of these
advances take place in OECD nations; only a small portion of non-OECD
countries have succeeded in rapidly adjusting to these technological
forces; the accelerated development of new industrial (and agricultural)
technology is complicating already grim environmental problems |
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Industrial production growth rate:
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3% (2003
est.) |
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Electricity - production:
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17.4
trillion kWh (2004 est.) |
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Electricity - production by source:
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fossil fuel: NA
hydro:
NA
nuclear:
NA
other: NA
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Electricity - consumption:
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16.33
trillion kWh (2004 est.) |
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Electricity - exports:
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568.4
billion kWh (2004) |
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Electricity - imports:
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582.2
billion kWh (2004) |
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Oil - production:
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83 million
bbl/day (2004 est.) |
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Oil - consumption:
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82.59
million bbl/day (2004 est.) |
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Oil - proved reserves:
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1.326
trillion bbl (1 January 2002 est.) |
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Natural gas - production:
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2.822
trillion cu m (2004 est.) |
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Natural gas - consumption:
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2.819
trillion cu m (2004 est.) |
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Natural gas - exports:
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813.5
billion cu m (2004 est.) |
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Natural gas - imports:
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819.3
billion cu m (2004 est.) |
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Natural gas - proved reserves:
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172.8
trillion cu m (1 January 2005 est.) |
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Exports:
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$12.44
trillion f.o.b. (2004 est.) |
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Exports - commo_endities:
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the whole
range of industrial and agricultural goods and services |
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Exports - about_partners:
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US 14.8%,
Germany 7.4%, China 6.4%, France 4.6%, UK 4.5%, Japan 4.4% (2006) |
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Imports:
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$12.09
trillion f.o.b. (2004 est.) |
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Imports - commo_endities:
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the whole
range of industrial and agricultural goods and services |
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Imports - about_partners:
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China
9.7%, Germany 8.8%, US 8.7%, Japan 5.7% (2006) |
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Debt - external:
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$44.61 trillion
note:
this figure is the sum total of all countries' external debt, both
public and private (2004 est.) |
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Economic aid - recipient:
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ODA, $154
billion (2004) |
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Telephones - main lines in use:
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1,263,367,600 (2005) |
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Telephones - mobile cellular:
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2,168,433,600 (2005) |
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Telephone system:
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general assessment: NA
domestic:
NA
international:
NA |
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Radio broadcast stations:
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AM NA, FM
NA, shortwave NA |
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Radios:
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NA |
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Television broadcast stations:
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NA |
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Televisions:
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NA |
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Internet Service Providers (ISPs):
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10,350
(2000 est.) |
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Internet users:
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1,018,057,389 (2005) |
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Airports:
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49,024
(2006) |
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Heliports:
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2,021
(2006) |
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Railways:
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total: 1,115,205 km
broad gauge:
257,481 km
standard gauge:
671,413 km
narrow gauge:
186,311 km (2003) |
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Roadways:
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total: 32,345,165 km
paved:
19,403,061 km
unpaved:
12,942,104 km (2002) |
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Waterways:
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671,886 km
(2004) |
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Merchant marine:
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total: 33,222 ships (1000 GRT or over)
(2006) |
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Military expenditures - percent of GDP:
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roughly 2%
of gross world product (2005 est.) |
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Transnational Issues |
World |
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Disputes - international:
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stretching
over 250,000 km, the world's 319 international land boundaries separate
193 independent states and 70 dependencies, areas of special
sovereignty, and other miscellaneous entities; ethnicity, culture, race,
religion, and language have divided states into separate political
entities as much as history, physical terrain, political fiat, or
conquest, resulting in sometimes arbitrary and imposed boundaries; most
maritime states have claimed limits that include territorial seas and
exclusive economic zones; overlapping limits due to adjacent or opposite
coasts create the potential for 430 bilateral maritime boundaries of
which 209 have agreements that include contiguous and non-contiguous
segments; boundary, borderland/resource, and territorial disputes vary
in intensity from managed or dormant to violent or militarized;
undemarcated, indefinite, porous, and unmanaged boundaries tend to
encourage illegal cross-border activities, uncontrolled migration, and
confrontation; territorial disputes may evolve from historical and/or
cultural claims, or they may be brought on by resource competition;
ethnic and cultural clashes continue to be responsible for much of the
territorial fragmentation and internal displacement of the estimated 6.6
million people and cross-border displacements of 8.6 million refugees
around the world as of early 2006; just over one million refugees were
repatriated in the same period; other sources of contention include
access to water and mineral (especially hydrocarbon) resources,
fisheries, and arable land; armed conflict prevails not so much between
the uniformed armed forces of independent states as between stateless
armed entities that detract from the sustenance and welfare of local
populations, leaving the community of nations to cope with resultant
refugees, hunger, disease, impoverishment, and environmental degradation
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Refugees and internally displaced persons:
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the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that in
December 2005 there was a global population of 8.4 million registered
refugees, the lowest number in 26 years, and as many as 23.7 million
IDPs in more than 50 countries; the actual global population of refugees
is probably closer to 10 million given the estimated 1.5 million Iraqi
refugees displaced throughout the Middle East (2006) |
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Trafficking in persons:
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current situation:
about 600,000 to 800,000 people, mostly women and children, are
trafficked annually across national borders, not including millions
trafficked within their own countries; at least 80% of the victims are
female; 75% of all victims are trafficked into commercial sexual
exploitation; roughly two-thirds of the global victims are trafficked
intra-regionally within East Asia and the Pacific (260,000 to 280,000
people) and Europe and Eurasia (170,000 to 210,000 people)
Tier 2 Watch List:
Argentina, Armenia, Belarus, Burundi, Cambodia, Central African
Republic, Chad, China, Cyprus, Dijbouti, Dominican Republic, Egypt,
Fiji, The Gambia, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, India, Kazakhstan, Kenya,
Libya, Macau, Mauritania, Mexico, Moldova, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea,
Russia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates
Tier 3:
Algeria, Bahrain, Burma, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Kuwait,
Malaysia, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria,
Uzbekistan, Venezuela |
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Illicit drugs:
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cocaine: worldwide coca
leaf cultivation in 2005 amounted to 208,500 hectares; Colombia produced
slightly more than two-thirds of the worldwide crop, followed by Peru
and Bolivia; potential pure cocaine production rose to 900 from 645
metric tons in 2005 - partially due to improved methodologies used to
calculate levels of production; Colombia conducts aggressive coca
eradication campaign, but both Peruvian and Bolivian Governments are
hesitant to eradicate coca in key growing areas; 551 metric tons of
export-quality cocaine (85% pure) is documented to have been seized or
destroyed in 2005; US consumption of export quality cocaine is estimated
to have been in excess of 380 metric tons
opiates:
worldwide illicit opium poppy cultivation reached 208,500 hectares in
2005; potential opium production of 4,990 metric tons was only a 9%
decrease over 2004's highest total recorded since estimates began in
mid-1980s; af is world's primary opium producer, accounting for
90% of the global supply; Southeast Asia - responsible for 9% of global
opium - saw marginal increases in production; Latin America produced 1%
of global opium, but most was refined into heroin destined for the US
market; if all potential opium was processed into pure heroin, the
potential global production would be 577 metric tons of heroin in 2005
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This page was last updated on 19 July, 2007
CIA - The World Factbook
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