World
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| Introduction - World: | Country | World | | Background | 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 planets 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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| Location - World: | Geographic coordinates | 0 00 N, 25 00 W | | Map references | Physical Map of the World, Political Map of the World, Standard Time Zones of the World | | Area | total: 510.072 million sq km
land: 148.94 million sq km
water: 361.132 million sq km
note: 70.8% of the worlds surface is water, 29.2% is land | | Area comparative | land area about 16 times the size of the US | | Land boundaries | 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: Afghanistan, 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 | | Coastline | 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 | | Maritime claims | 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 | | Climate | 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 | | Terrain | the greatest ocean depth is the Mariana Trench at 10,924 m in the Pacific Ocean | | Elevation extremes | 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 | | Natural resources | 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 | | Land use | arable land: 13.31%
permanent crops: 4.71%
other: 81.98% (2005) | | Irrigated land | 2,770,980 sq km (2003) | | Natural hazards | large areas subject to severe weather (tropical cyclones), natural disasters (earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions) | | Environment current issues | 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 | | Geography note | 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 | |
| People - World: | Population | 6,602,224,175 (July 2007 est.) | | Age structure | 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.) | | Median age | total: 28 years male: 27.4 years female: 28.7 years (2007 est.) | | Population growth rate | 1.167% (2007 est.) | | Birth rate | 20.09 births/1,000 population (2007 est.) | | Death rate | 8.37 deaths/1,000 population (2007 est.) | | Sex ratio | 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.) | | Infant mortality rate | 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.) | | Life expectancy at birth | total population: 65.82 years male: 63.89 years female: 67.84 years (2007 est.) | | Total fertility rate | 2.59 children born/woman (2007 est.) | | Hiv aids adult prevalence rate | NA | | Hiv aids people living with hiv aids | NA | | Hiv aids deaths | NA | | Religions | 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.) | | Languages | Mandarin Chinese 13.69%, Spanish 5.05%, English 4.84%, Arabic 3.23%, 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% | | Literacy | definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 82%
male: 87%
female: 77%
note: over two-thirds of the worlds 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.) | |
| Government - World: | Administrative divisions | 265 nations, dependent areas, and other entities | | Legal system | all members of the UN are parties to the statute that established the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or World Court | |
| Economy - World: | Economy overview | 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 common 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. | | Gdp purchasing power parity | GWP (gross world product): $65.95 trillion (2006 est.) | | Gdp official exchange rate | $46.76 trillion (2006 est.) | | Gdp real growth rate | 5.3% (2006 est.) | | Gdp per capita ppp | $10,200 (2006 est.) | | Gdp composition by sector | agriculture: 4% industry: 32% services: 64% (2004 est.) | | Labor force | 3.001 billion (2005 est.) | | Labor force by occupation | agriculture: 40.7%
industry: 20.5%
services: 38.8% (2002 est.) | | Unemployment rate | 30% combined unemployment and underemployment in many non-industrialized countries; developed countries typically 4%-12% unemployment (2006 est.) | | Household income or consumption by percentage share | lowest 10%: 2.5% highest 10%: 29.9% (2002 est.) | | Inflation rate consumer prices | 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.) | | Industries | 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 | | Industrial production growth rate | 3% (2003 est.) | | Electricity production | 17.4 trillion kWh (2004 est.) | | Electricity consumption | 16.33 trillion kWh (2004 est.) | | Electricity exports | 568.4 billion kWh (2004) | | Electricity imports | 582.2 billion kWh (2004) | | Oil production | 83 million bbl/day (2004 est.) | | Oil consumption | 82.59 million bbl/day (2004 est.) | | Oil exports | 63.76 million bbl/day | | Oil imports | 63.18 million bbl/day | | Oil proved reserves | 1.293 trillion bbl (1 January 2005 est.) | | Natural gas production | 2.822 trillion cu m (2004 est.) | | Natural gas consumption | 2.819 trillion cu m (2004 est.) | | Natural gas exports | 813.5 billion cu m (2004 est.) | | Natural gas imports | 819.3 billion cu m (2004 est.) | | Natural gas proved reserves | 172.8 trillion cu m (1 January 2005 est.) | | Exports | $12.44 trillion f.o.b. (2004 est.) | | Exports commodities | the whole range of industrial and agricultural goods and services | | Exports partners | US 14.8%, Germany 7.4%, China 6.4%, France 4.6%, UK 4.5%, Japan 4.4% (2006) | | Imports | $12.09 trillion f.o.b. (2004 est.) | | Imports commodities | the whole range of industrial and agricultural goods and services | | Imports partners | China 9.7%, Germany 8.8%, US 8.7%, Japan 5.7% (2006) | | Debt external | $44.61 trillion note: this figure is the sum total of all countries external debt, both public and private (2004 est.) | | Economic aid recipient | ODA, $154 billion (2004) | |
| Communications - World: | Telephones main lines in use | 1,263,367,600 (2005) | | Telephones mobile cellular | 2,168,433,600 (2005) | | Telephone system | general assessment: NA
domestic: NA
international: NA | | Radio broadcast stations | AM NA, FM NA, shortwave NA | | Television broadcast stations | NA | | Internet users | 1,018,057,389 (2005) | |
| Transportation - World: | Airports | 49,024 (2006) | | Heliports | 2,021 (2006) | | Railways | total: 1,336,284 km
broad gauge: 288,611 km
standard gauge: 865,011 km
narrow gauge: 182,662 km (2005) | | Roadways | total: 32,345,165 km
paved: 19,403,061 km
unpaved: 12,942,104 km (2002) | | Waterways | 671,886 km (2004) | | Merchant marine | total: 33,222 ships (1000 GRT or over) (2006) | |
| Military - World: | Refugees and internally displaced persons | 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) | | Military expenditures percent of gdp | roughly 2% of gross world product (2005 est.) | | Trafficking in persons | 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 | | Disputes international | stretching over 250,000 km, the worlds 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 | |
This page was last updated on 16 September, 2007
Source: CIA >>> |
