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Compare Lesotho (2008) - World (2002)
Compare Lesotho (2008) z World (2002)
| Lesotho (2008) | World (2002) | |
 |  | |
| Administrative divisions | 10 districts; Berea, Butha-Buthe, Leribe, Mafeteng, Maseru, Mohale's Hoek, Mokhotlong, Qacha's Nek, Quthing, Thaba-Tseka | 268 nations, dependent areas, other, and miscellaneous entries |
| Age structure | 0-14 years: 35.7% (male 382,308/female 377,303)
15-64 years: 59.3% (male 613,979/female 645,818) 65 years and over: 5% (male 42,621/female 63,233) (2007 est.) |
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.) |
| Agriculture - products | corn, wheat, pulses, sorghum, barley; livestock | - |
| Airports | 28 (2007) | - |
| Airports - with paved runways | total: 3
over 3,047 m: 1 914 to 1,523 m: 1 under 914 m: 1 (2007) |
- |
| Airports - with unpaved runways | total: 25
914 to 1,523 m: 4 under 914 m: 21 (2007) |
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| Area | total: 30,355 sq km
land: 30,355 sq km water: 0 sq km |
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 |
| Area - comparative | slightly smaller than Maryland | land area about 16 times the size of the US |
| Background | Basutoland was renamed the Kingdom of Lesotho upon independence from the UK in 1966. The Basuto National Party ruled for the first two decades. King MOSHOESHOE was exiled in 1990, but returned to Lesotho in 1992 and was reinstated in 1995. Constitutional government was restored in 1993 after seven years of military rule. In 1998, violent protests and a military mutiny following a contentious election prompted a brief but bloody intervention by South African and Botswanan military forces under the aegis of the Southern African Development Community. Subsequent constitutional reforms restored relative political stability. Peaceful parliamentary elections were held in 2002, but the National Assembly elections of February 2007 were hotly contested and aggrieved parties continue to periodically demonstrate their distrust of the results. | 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). |
| Birth rate | 24.72 births/1,000 population (2007 est.) | 21.16 births/1,000 population (2002 est.) |
| Budget | revenues: $951.4 million
expenditures: $855.4 million (2007 est.) |
- |
| Capital | name: Maseru
geographic coordinates: 29 19 S, 27 29 E time difference: UTC+2 (7 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time) |
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| Climate | temperate; cool to cold, dry winters; hot, wet summers | two large areas of polar climates separated by two rather narrow temperate zones form a wide equatorial band of tropical to subtropical climates |
| Coastline | 0 km (landlocked) | 356,000 km |
| Constitution | 2 April 1993 | - |
| Country name | conventional long form: Kingdom of Lesotho
conventional short form: Lesotho local long form: Kingdom of Lesotho local short form: Lesotho former: Basutoland |
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| Death rate | 22.49 deaths/1,000 population (2007 est.) | 8.93 deaths/1,000 population (2002 est.) |
| Debt - external | $693 million (31 December 2007 est.) | $2 trillion for less developed countries (2001 est.) |
| Diplomatic representation from the US | chief of mission: Ambassador Robert NOLAN
embassy: 254 Kingsway, Maseru West (Consular Section) mailing address: P. O. Box 333, Maseru 100, Lesotho telephone: [266] 22 312666 FAX: [266] 22 310116 |
- |
| Diplomatic representation in the US | chief of mission: Ambassador (vacant); Charge d'Affaires Mabasia MOHOBANE
chancery: 2511 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008 telephone: [1] (202) 797-5533 through 5536 FAX: [1] (202) 234-6815 |
- |
| Disputes - international | none | - |
| Economic aid - recipient | $68.82 million (2005) | official development assistance (ODA) $50 billion (2001 est.) |
| Economy - overview | Small, landlocked, and mountainous, Lesotho relies on remittances from miners employed in South Africa and customs duties from the Southern Africa Customs Union for the majority of government revenue. However, the government has recently strengthened its tax system to reduce dependency on customs duties. Completion of a major hydropower facility in January 1998 now permits the sale of water to South Africa and also generates royalties for Lesotho. Lesotho produces about 90% of its own electrical power needs. As the number of mineworkers has declined steadily over the past several years, a small manufacturing base has developed based on farm products that support the milling, canning, leather, and jute industries, as well as a rapidly expanding apparel-assembly sector. The latter has grown significantly mainly due to Lesotho qualifying for the trade benefits contained in the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act. The economy is still primarily based on subsistence agriculture, especially livestock, although drought has decreased agricultural activity. The extreme inequality in the distribution of income remains a major drawback. Lesotho has signed an Interim Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility with the IMF. In July 2007 Lesotho signed a Millennium Challenge Account Compact with the US worth $362.5 million. | 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.) |
| Electricity - consumption | 338.5 million kWh (2005) | - |
| Electricity - exports | 0 kWh (2005) | - |
| Electricity - imports | 13 million kWh; note - electricity supplied by South Africa (2005) | - |
| Electricity - production | 350 million kWh; note - electricity supplied by South Africa (2005) | - |
| Electricity - production by source | - | fossil fuel: NA%
hydro: NA% nuclear: NA% other: NA% |
| Elevation extremes | lowest point: junction of the Orange and Makhaleng Rivers 1,400 m
highest point: Thabana Ntlenyana 3,482 m |
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.) |
| Environment - current issues | population pressure forcing settlement in marginal areas results in overgrazing, severe soil erosion, and soil exhaustion; desertification; Highlands Water Project controls, stores, and redirects water to South Africa | 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 |
| Environment - international agreements | party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Marine Life Conservation, Ozone Layer Protection, Wetlands
signed, but not ratified: Law of the Sea |
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| Ethnic groups | Sotho 99.7%, Europeans, Asians, and other 0.3%, | - |
| Exchange rates | maloti per US dollar - 7.25 (2007), 6.85 (2006), 6.3593 (2005), 6.4597 (2004), 7.5648 (2003) | - |
| Executive branch | chief of state: King LETSIE III (since 7 February 1996); note - King LETSIE III formerly occupied the throne from November 1990 to February 1995 while his father was in exile
head of government: Prime Minister Pakalitha MOSISILI (since 23 May 1998) cabinet: Cabinet elections: none - according to the constitution, the leader of the majority party in the Assembly automatically becomes prime minister; the monarch is hereditary, but, under the terms of the constitution, that came into effect after the March 1993 election, the monarch is a "living symbol of national unity" with no executive or legislative powers; under traditional law the college of chiefs has the power to depose the monarch, determine who is next in the line of succession, or who shall serve as regent in the event that the successor is not of mature age |
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| Exports | 0 bbl/day (2004) | $6.3 trillion f.o.b. (2001 est.) |
| Exports - commodities | manufactures 75% (clothing, footwear, road vehicles), wool and mohair, food and live animals (2000) | the whole range of industrial and agricultural goods and services |
| Exports - partners | US 81.9%, Belgium 15%, Canada 1.9% (2006) | in value, about 75% of exports from the developed countries |
| Fiscal year | 1 April - 31 March | - |
| Flag description | three horizontal stripes of blue (top), white, and green in the proportions of 3:4:3; the colors represent rain, peace, and prosperity respectively; centered in the white stripe is a black Basotho hat representing the indigenous people; the flag was unfurled in October 2006 to celebrate 40 years of independence | - |
| GDP | - | GWP (gross world product) - purchasing power parity - $47 trillion (2001 est.) |
| GDP - composition by sector | agriculture: 15.2%
industry: 45% services: 39.7% (2007 est.) |
agriculture: 4%
industry: 32% services: 64% (2001 est.) |
| GDP - per capita | - | purchasing power parity - $7,600 (2001 est.) |
| GDP - real growth rate | 4.8% (2007 est.) | 2.2% (2001 est.) |
| Geographic coordinates | 29 30 S, 28 30 E | - |
| Geography - note | landlocked, completely surrounded by South Africa; mountainous, more than 80% of the country is 1,800 meters above sea level | 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 |
| Highways | - | total: NA km
paved: NA km unpaved: NA km |
| Household income or consumption by percentage share | lowest 10%: 0.9%
highest 10%: 43.4% (2002 est.) |
lowest 10%: NA%
highest 10%: NA% |
| Imports | 1,400 bbl/day (2004) | $6.3 trillion f.o.b. (2001 est.) |
| Imports - commodities | food; building materials, vehicles, machinery, medicines, petroleum products | the whole range of industrial and agricultural goods and services |
| Imports - partners | Hong Kong 33.4%, China 31.2%, Germany 7.7%, India 7.3% (2006) | in value, about 75% of imports into the developed countries |
| Independence | 4 October 1966 (from UK) | - |
| Industrial production growth rate | 12% (2007 est.) | 6% (2000 est.) |
| Industries | food, beverages, textiles, apparel assembly, handicrafts, construction, tourism | 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 |
| Infant mortality rate | total: 79.85 deaths/1,000 live births
male: 84.4 deaths/1,000 live births female: 75.17 deaths/1,000 live births (2007 est.) |
51.55 deaths/1,000 live births (2002 est.) |
| Inflation rate (consumer prices) | 12% (2007 est.) | 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 |
| International organization participation | ACP, AfDB, AU, C, FAO, G-77, IBRD, ICAO, ICCt, ICRM, IDA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, ILO, IMF, Interpol, IOC, ISO (subscriber), ITU, MIGA, NAM, OPCW, SACU, SADC, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNIDO, UNWTO, UPU, WCO, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTO | - |
| Internet Service Providers (ISPs) | - | 10,350 (2000 est.) |
| Irrigated land | 30 sq km (2003) | 2,714,320 sq km (1998 est.) |
| Judicial branch | High Court (chief justice appointed by the monarch acting on the advice of the Prime Minister); Court of Appeal; Magistrate Courts; customary or traditional court | - |
| Labor force | 838,000 (2000 est.) | NA |
| Labor force - by occupation | agriculture: 86% of resident population engaged in subsistence agriculture; roughly 35% of the active male wage earners work in South Africa
industry and services: 14% (2002 est.) |
agriculture NA%, industry NA%, services NA% |
| Land boundaries | total: 909 km
border countries: South Africa 909 km |
the land boundaries in the world total 250,472 km (not counting shared boundaries twice) |
| Land use | arable land: 10.87%
permanent crops: 0.13% other: 89% (2005) |
arable land: 10.58%
permanent crops: 1% other: 88.42% (1998 est.) |
| Languages | Sesotho (southern Sotho), English (official), Zulu, Xhosa | 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 |
| Legal system | based on English common law and Roman-Dutch law; judicial review of legislative acts in High Court and Court of Appeal; accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction with reservations | all members of the UN plus Switzerland are parties to the statute that established the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or World Court |
| Legislative branch | bicameral Parliament consists of the Senate (33 members - 22 principal chiefs and 11 other members appointed by the ruling party) and the Assembly (120 seats, 80 by popular vote and 40 by proportional vote; members elected by popular vote for five-year terms)
elections: last held 17 February 2007 (next to be held in 2012) election results: percent of vote by party - NA; seats by party - LCD 61, NIP 21, ABC 17, LWP 10, ACP 4, BNP 3, other 4 |
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| Life expectancy at birth | total population: 39.97 years
male: 40.73 years female: 39.18 years (2007 est.) |
total population: 63.94 years
male: 62.28 years female: 65.67 years (2002 est.) |
| Literacy | definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 84.8% male: 74.5% female: 94.5% (2003 est.) |
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 77% male: 83% female: 71% (1995 est.) |
| Location | Southern Africa, an enclave of South Africa | - |
| Map references | Africa | Physical Map of the World, Political Map of the World, Standard Time Zones of the World |
| Maritime claims | none (landlocked) | 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 |
| Military - note | the Lesotho Government in 1999 began an open debate on the future structure, size, and role of the armed forces, especially considering the Lesotho Defense Force's (LDF) history of intervening in political affairs | - |
| Military branches | Lesotho Defense Force (LDF): Army and Air Wing | - |
| 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 | 2.6% (2006) | roughly 2% of gross world product (1999 est.) |
| National holiday | Independence Day, 4 October (1966) | - |
| Nationality | noun: Mosotho (singular), Basotho (plural)
adjective: Basotho |
- |
| Natural hazards | periodic droughts | large areas subject to severe weather (tropical cyclones), natural disasters (earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions) |
| Natural resources | water, agricultural and grazing land, diamonds, sand, clay, building stone | 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 |
| Net migration rate | -0.78 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2007 est.) | - |
| Political parties and leaders | Alliance of Congress Parties or ACP; All Basotho Convention or ABC [Thomas THABANE]; Basotholand African Congress or BAC [Khauhelo RALITAPOLE]; Basotho Congress Party or BCP [Ntsukunyane MPHANYA]; Basotho National Party or BNP [Maj. Gen. Justin Metsing LEKHANYA]; Kopanang Basotho Party or KPB [Pheelo MOSALA]; Lesotho Congress for Democracy or LCD (the governing party) [Pakalitha MOSISILI]; Lesotho Education Party or LEP [Thabo PITSO]; Lesotho Workers Party or LWP [Macaefa BILLY]; Marematlou Freedom Party or MFP [Vincent MALEBO]; National Independent Party or NIP [Anthony MANYELI]; New Lesotho Freedom Party or NLFP [Manapo MAJARA]; Popular Front for Democracy or PFD [Lekhetho RAKUOANE]; Sefate Democratic Union or SDU [Bofihla NKUEBE]; Social Democratic Party of SDP [Masitise SELESO] | - |
| Political pressure groups and leaders | NA | - |
| Population | 2,125,262
note: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality and death rates, lower population and growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July 2007 est.) |
6,233,821,945 (July 2002 est.) |
| Population below poverty line | 49% (1999) | - |
| Population growth rate | 0.144% (2007 est.) | 1.23% (2002 est.) |
| Ports and harbors | - | Chiba, Houston, Kawasaki, Kobe, Marseille, Mina' al Ahmadi (Kuwait), New Orleans, New York, Rotterdam, Yokohama |
| Radio broadcast stations | AM 1, FM 2, shortwave 1 (1998) | AM NA, FM NA, shortwave NA |
| Radios | - | NA |
| 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 standard gauge: 710,754 km narrow gauge: 239,430 km |
| Religions | Christian 80%, indigenous beliefs 20% | 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.) |
| Sex ratio | at birth: 1.03 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.013 male(s)/female 15-64 years: 0.951 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.674 male(s)/female total population: 0.956 male(s)/female (2007 est.) |
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.) |
| Suffrage | 18 years of age; universal | - |
| Telephone system | general assessment: rudimentary system consisting of a modest but growing number of landlines, a small microwave radio relay system, and a small radiotelephone communication system; mobile-cellular telephone system is expanding
domestic: privatized in 2001, Telecom Lesotho tasked with providing an additional 50,000 fixed-line connections within five years, a target not met; mobile-cellular service is expanding with a subscribership approaching 15 per 100 persons; rural services are scant international: country code - 266; satellite earth station - 1 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean) |
general assessment: NA
domestic: NA international: NA |
| Telephones - main lines in use | 48,000 (2005) | NA |
| Telephones - mobile cellular | 249,800 (2005) | NA |
| Television broadcast stations | 1 (2000) | NA |
| Terrain | mostly highland with plateaus, hills, and mountains | the greatest ocean depth is the Mariana Trench at 10,924 m in the Pacific Ocean |
| Total fertility rate | 3.21 children born/woman (2007 est.) | 2.7 children born/woman (2002 est.) |
| Unemployment rate | 45% (2002) | 30% combined unemployment and underemployment in many non-industrialized countries; developed countries typically 4%-12% unemployment (2001 est.) |
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