Israel
|
| Basic Facts |
| Country name |
conventional long form: State of Israel
conventional short form: Israel local long form: Medinat Yisra'el local short form: Yisra'el |
| Gevernment type | parliamentary democracy |
| Capital |
name: Jerusalem
geographic coordinates: 32 05 N, 34 48 E time difference: UTC+2 (7 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time) daylight saving time: +1hr, begins last Friday in March; ends the Sunday between the holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur note: Israel proclaimed Jerusalem as its capital in 1950, but the US, like nearly all other countries, maintains its Embassy in Tel Aviv |
| Flag description | white with a blue hexagram (six-pointed linear star) known as the Magen David (Shield of David) centered between two equal horizontal blue bands near the top and bottom edges of the flag |
| Currency | new Israeli shekel (ILS); note - NIS is the currency abbreviation; ILS is the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) code for the NIS |
| Internet country code | .il |
| Ports and terminals | Ashdod, Elat (Eilat), Hadera, Haifa |
| Agriculture products | citrus, vegetables, cotton; beef, poultry, dairy products |
| Industries | high-technology projects (including aviation, communications, computer-aided design and manufactures, medical electronics, fiber optics), wood and paper products, potash and phosphates, food, beverages, and tobacco, caustic soda, cement, construction, metals products, chemical products, plastics, diamond cutting, textiles, footwear |
| Geography |
| Location | Middle East, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Egypt and Lebanon |
| Coordinates | 31 30 N, 34 45 E |
| Continent | Middle East |
| Area |
total: 20,770 sq km
land: 20,330 sq km water: 440 sq km |
| Boundaries |
total: 1,017 km
border countries: Egypt 266 km, Gaza Strip 51 km, Jordan 238 km, Lebanon 79 km, Syria 76 km, West Bank 307 km |
| Coastline | 273 km |
| Climate | temperate; hot and dry in southern and eastern desert areas |
| Terrain | Negev desert in the south; low coastal plain; central mountains; Jordan Rift Valley |
| Natural resources | timber, potash, copper ore, natural gas, phosphate rock, magnesium bromide, clays, sand |
| Natural hazards | sandstorms may occur during spring and summer; droughts; periodic earthquakes |
| People |
| Population | 6,352,117
note: includes about 187,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, about 20,000 in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and fewer than 177,000 in East Jerusalem (July 2006 est.) |
| Ethnic groups | Jewish 76.4% (of which Israel-born 67.1%, Europe/America-born 22.6%, Africa-born 5.9%, Asia-born 4.2%), non-Jewish 23.6% (mostly Arab) (2004) |
| Religions | Jewish 76.4%, Muslim 16%, Arab Christians 1.7%, other Christian 0.4%, Druze 1.6%, unspecified 3.9% (2004) |
| Languages | Hebrew (official), Arabic used officially for Arab minority, English most commonly used foreign language |
