World

1. World Introduction

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 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).

2. World Geography

Map references:
  Physical Map of the World, Political Map of the World, Standard Time Zones
  of the World

Area:
  total: 510.072 million km
  land: 148.94 million km
  water: 361.132 million km
  note: 70.8% of the world's 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 250,472 km (not counting shared
  boundaries twice)

Coastline:
  356,000 km

Maritime claims:
  a variety of situations exist, but in general, most countries make the
  following claims: contiguous zone - 24 NM; continental shelf - 200-m depth
    or to the depth of exploitation, or 200 NM or to the edge of the
    continental margin; exclusive fishing zone - 200 NM; exclusive economic
    zone - 200 NM; territorial sea - 12 NM; boundary situations with
    neighboring states prevent many countries from extending their fishing or
    economic zones to a full 200 NM; 43 nations and other areas that are
    landlocked 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, Malawi, Mali, Moldova, Mongolia, Nepal, Niger, Paraguay,
    Rwanda, San Marino, Slovakia, Swaziland, Switzerland, Tajikistan, The
    Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Uzbekistan,
    West Bank, Zambia, Zimbabwe; two of these, Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan,
    are doubly landlocked

Climate:
  two large areas of polar climates separated by two rather narrow temperate
  zones form a wide equatorial band of tropical to subtropical 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 (1999 est.)

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: 11%
  permanent crops: 1%
  other: 88% (1998 est.)

Irrigated land:
  2,714,320 km (1998 est.)

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

Geography - note:
  the world is now thought to be about 4.55 billion years old, just about
  one-third of the 13-billion-year age estimated for the universe

3. World People

Population:
  6,233,821,945 (July 2002 est.)

Age structure:
  0-14 years: 29.2% (male 932,581,592; female 885,688,851)
  15-64 years: 63.7% (male 2,009,997,089; female 1,964,938,201)
  65 years and over: 7.1% (male 193,549,180; female 247,067,032) (2002 est.)

Population growth rate:
  1.23% (2002 est.)

Birth rate:
  21.16 births/1,000 population (2002 est.)

Death rate:
  8.93 deaths/1,000 population (2002 est.)

Sex ratio:
  at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
  under 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female
  15-64 years: 1.02 male(s)/female
  65 years and over: 0.78 male(s)/female
  total population: 1.01 male(s)/female (2002 est.)

Infant mortality rate:
  51.55 deaths/1,000 live births (2002 est.)

Life expectancy at birth:
  total population: 63.94 years
  female: 65.67 years (2002 est.)
  male: 62.28 years

Total fertility rate:
  2.7 children born/woman (2002 est.)

HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate:
  NA%

HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/ AIDS:
  NA

HIV/AIDS - deaths:
  NA

Religions:
  Christians 32.88% (of which Roman Catholics 17.39%, Protestants 5.62%,
  Orthodox 3.54%, Anglicans 1.31%), Muslims 19.54%, Hindus 13.34%, Buddhists
  5.92%, Sikhs 0.38%, Jews 0.24%, other religions 12.6%, non- religious
  12.63%, atheists 2.47% (2000 est.)

Languages:
  Chinese, Mandarin 14.37%, Hindi 6.02%, English 5.61%, Spanish 5.59%,
  Bengali 3.4%, Portuguese 2.63%, Russian 2.75%, Japanese 2.06%, German,
  Standard 1.64%, Korean 1.28%, French 1.27% (2000 est.)
  note: percents are for "first language" speakers only

Literacy:
  definition: age 15 and over can read and write
  total population: 77%
  male: 83%
  female: 71% (1995 est.)

4. World Government

Administrative divisions:
  268 nations, dependent areas, other, and miscellaneous entries

Legal system:
  all members of the UN plus Switzerland are parties to the statute that
  established the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or World Court

5. World Economy

Economy - overview:
  Growth in global output (gross world product, GWP) fell from 4.8% in 2000
  to 2.2% in 2001. The causes: slowdowns in the US economy (21% of GWP) and
    in the 15 EU economies (20% of GWP); continued stagnation in the Japanese
    economy (7.3% of GWP); and spillover effects in the less developed
    regions of the world. China, the second largest economy in the world (12%
    of GWP), proved an exception, continuing its rapid annual growth,
    officially announced as 7.3% but estimated by many observers as perhaps
    two percentage points lower. Russia (2.6% of GWP), with 5.2% growth,
    continued to make uneven progress, its GDP per capita still only
    one-third that of the leading industrial nations. The other 14 successor
    nations of the USSR and the other old Warsaw Pact nations again
    experienced widely divergent growth rates; the three Baltic nations were
    strong performers, in the 5% range of growth. The developing nations also
    varied in their growth results, with many countries facing population
    increases that eat up 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 Indonesia, and in Canada.
    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
    the 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 accentuate a further
    growing risk to global prosperity, illustrated, for example, by the
    reallocation of resources away from investment to anti-terrorist
    programs. (For specific economic developments in each country of the
    world in 2001, see the individual country entries.)

GDP:
  GWP (gross world product) - purchasing power parity - $47 trillion (2001
  est.)

GDP - real growth rate:
  2.2% (2001 est.)

GDP - per capita:
  purchasing power parity - $7,600 (2001 est.)

GDP - composition by sector:
  agriculture: 4%
  industry: 32%
  services: 64% (2001 est.)

Household income or consumption by percentage share:
  lowest 10%: NA%
  highest 10%: NA%

Inflation rate (consumer prices):
  developed countries 1% to 4% typically; developing countries 5% to 60%
  typically (2001 est.); national inflation rates vary widely in individual
  cases, from declining prices in Japan to hyperinflation in several Third
  World countries

Labor force:
  NA

Labor force - by occupation:
  agriculture NA%, industry NA%, services NA%

Unemployment rate:
  30% combined unemployment and underemployment in many non- industrialized
  countries; developed countries typically 4%-12% unemployment (2001 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:
  6% (2000 est.)

Electricity - production by source:
  fossil fuel: NA%
  hydro: NA%
  nuclear: NA%
  other: NA%

Exports:
  $6.3 trillion (f.o.b., 2001 est.)

Exports - commodities:
  the whole range of industrial and agricultural goods and services

Exports - partners:
  in value, about 75% of exports from the developed countries

Imports:
  $6.3 trillion (f.o.b., 2001 est.)

Imports - commodities:
  the whole range of industrial and agricultural goods and services

Imports - partners:
  in value, about 75% of imports into the developed countries

Debt - external:
  $2 trillion for less developed countries (2001 est.)

Economic aid - recipient:
  official development assistance (ODA) $50 billion (2001 est.)

6. World Communications

Telephones - main lines in use:
  NA

Telephones - mobile cellular:
  NA

Telephone system:
  general assessment: NA
  domestic: NA
  international: NA

Radio broadcast stations:
  AM NA, FM NA, shortwave NA

Radios:
  NA

Television broadcast stations:
  NA

Televisions:
  NA

Internet Service Providers (ISPs):
  10,350 (2000 est.)

Internet users:
  513.41 million (2001 est.)

7. World Transportation

Railways:
  total: 1,201,337 km includes about 190,000 to 195,000 km of electrified
    routes of which 147,760 km are in Europe, 24,509 km in the Far East,
    11,050 km in Africa, 4,223 km in South America, and 4,160 km in North
    America; note - fastest speed in daily service is 300 km/hr attained by
    France's Societe Nationale des Chemins-de-Fer Francais (SNCF) Le Train a
    Grande Vitesse (TGV) - Atlantique line
  broad gauge: 251,153 km
  narrow gauge: 239,430 km
  standard gauge: 710,754 km

Highways:
  total: NA km
  paved: NA km
  unpaved: NA km

Ports and harbors:
  Chiba, Houston, Kawasaki, Kobe, Marseille, Mina' al Ahmadi (Kuwait), New
  Orleans, New York, Rotterdam, Yokohama

8. World Military

Military expenditures - dollar figure:
  aggregate real expenditure on arms worldwide in 1999 remained at
  approximately the 1998 level, about three-quarters of a trillion dollars
  (1999 est.)

Military expenditures - percent of GDP:
  roughly 2% of gross world product (1999 est.)
