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Compare Western Sahara (2008) - World (2002)
Compare Western Sahara (2008) z World (2002)
| Western Sahara (2008) | World (2002) | |
 | | |
| Administrative divisions | none (under de facto control of Morocco) | 268 nations, dependent areas, other, and miscellaneous entries |
| Age structure | 0-14 years: 45.4% (male 88,176/female 85,421)
15-64 years: 52.3% (male 98,345/female 101,895) 65 years and over: 2.3% (male 3,705/female 5,075) (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 | fruits and vegetables (grown in the few oases); camels, sheep, goats (kept by nomads); fish | - |
| Airports | 9 (2007) | - |
| Airports - with paved runways | total: 3
2,438 to 3,047 m: 3 (2007) |
- |
| Airports - with unpaved runways | total: 6
1,524 to 2,437 m: 1 914 to 1,523 m: 3 under 914 m: 2 (2007) |
- |
| Area | total: 266,000 sq km
land: 266,000 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 | about the size of Colorado | land area about 16 times the size of the US |
| Background | Morocco virtually annexed the northern two-thirds of Western Sahara (formerly Spanish Sahara) in 1976, and the rest of the territory in 1979, following Mauritania's withdrawal. A guerrilla war with the Polisario Front contesting Rabat's sovereignty ended in a 1991 UN-brokered cease-fire; a UN-organized referendum on final status has been repeatedly postponed. In April 2007, Morocco presented an autonomy plan for the territory to the UN, which the U.S. considers serious and credible. The Polisario also presented a plan to the UN in 2007. Since August 2007, representatives from the Government of Morocco and the Polisario Front have met three times to negotiate the status of Western Sahara, with a fourth round of negotiations planned for March 2008. | 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 | NA 39.95 births/1,000 population (2007 est.) | 21.16 births/1,000 population (2002 est.) |
| Budget | revenues: $NA
expenditures: $NA |
- |
| Capital | none
time difference: UTC 0 (5 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time) |
- |
| Climate | hot, dry desert; rain is rare; cold offshore air currents produce fog and heavy dew | two large areas of polar climates separated by two rather narrow temperate zones form a wide equatorial band of tropical to subtropical climates |
| Coastline | 1,110 km | 356,000 km |
| Country name | conventional long form: none
conventional short form: Western Sahara former: Spanish Sahara |
- |
| Death rate | NA | 8.93 deaths/1,000 population (2002 est.) |
| Debt - external | $NA | $2 trillion for less developed countries (2001 est.) |
| Diplomatic representation from the US | none | - |
| Diplomatic representation in the US | none | - |
| Disputes - international | Morocco claims and administers Western Sahara, whose sovereignty remains unresolved; UN-administered cease-fire has remained in effect since September 1991, administered by the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), but attempts to hold a referendum have failed and parties thus far have rejected all brokered proposals; several states have extended diplomatic relations to the "Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic" represented by the Polisario Front in exile in Algeria, while others recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara; most of the approximately 102,000 Sahrawi refugees are sheltered in camps in Tindouf, Algeria | - |
| Economic aid - recipient | $NA | official development assistance (ODA) $50 billion (2001 est.) |
| Economy - overview | Western Sahara depends on pastoral nomadism, fishing, and phosphate mining as the principal sources of income for the population. The territory lacks sufficient rainfall for sustainable agricultural production, and most of the food for the urban population must be imported. Incomes in Western Sahara are substantially below the Moroccan level. The Moroccan Government controls all trade and other economic activities in Western Sahara. Morocco and the EU signed a four-year agreement in July 2006 allowing European vessels to fish off the coast of Morocco, including the disputed waters off the coast of Western Sahara. Moroccan energy interests in 2001 signed contracts to explore for oil off the coast of Western Sahara, which has angered the Polisario. However, in 2006 the Polisario awarded similar exploration licenses in the disputed territory, which would come into force if Morocco and the Polisario resolve their dispute over Western Sahara. | 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 | 79.05 million kWh (2005) | - |
| Electricity - exports | 0 kWh (2005) | - |
| Electricity - imports | 0 kWh (2005) | - |
| Electricity - production | 85 million kWh (2005) | - |
| Electricity - production by source | - | fossil fuel: NA%
hydro: NA% nuclear: NA% other: NA% |
| Elevation extremes | lowest point: Sebjet Tah -55 m
highest point: unnamed location 463 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 | sparse water and lack of arable land | 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: none of the selected agreements
signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements |
- |
| Ethnic groups | Arab, Berber | - |
| Exchange rates | Moroccan dirhams per US dollar - 8.2827 (2007), 8.7722 (2006), 8.865 (2005), 8.868 (2004), 9.5744 (2003) | - |
| Executive branch | none | - |
| Exports | 0 bbl/day (2004) | $6.3 trillion f.o.b. (2001 est.) |
| Exports - commodities | phosphates 62% | the whole range of industrial and agricultural goods and services |
| Exports - partners | Morocco claims and administers Western Sahara, so trade partners are included in overall Moroccan accounts (2006) | in value, about 75% of exports from the developed countries |
| Fiscal year | calendar year | - |
| GDP | - | GWP (gross world product) - purchasing power parity - $47 trillion (2001 est.) |
| GDP - composition by sector | agriculture: NA%
industry: NA% services: 40% |
agriculture: 4%
industry: 32% services: 64% (2001 est.) |
| GDP - per capita | - | purchasing power parity - $7,600 (2001 est.) |
| GDP - real growth rate | NA% | 2.2% (2001 est.) |
| Geographic coordinates | 24 30 N, 13 00 W | - |
| Geography - note | the waters off the coast are particularly rich fishing areas | 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%: NA%
highest 10%: NA% |
lowest 10%: NA%
highest 10%: NA% |
| Imports | 1,698 bbl/day (2004) | $6.3 trillion f.o.b. (2001 est.) |
| Imports - commodities | fuel for fishing fleet, foodstuffs | the whole range of industrial and agricultural goods and services |
| Imports - partners | Morocco claims and administers Western Sahara, so trade partners are included in overall Moroccan accounts (2006) | in value, about 75% of imports into the developed countries |
| Industrial production growth rate | NA% | 6% (2000 est.) |
| Industries | phosphate mining, handicrafts | 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: NA
male: NA female: NA |
51.55 deaths/1,000 live births (2002 est.) |
| Inflation rate (consumer prices) | NA% | 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 | none | - |
| Internet Service Providers (ISPs) | - | 10,350 (2000 est.) |
| Irrigated land | NA | 2,714,320 sq km (1998 est.) |
| Labor force | 12,000 | NA |
| Labor force - by occupation | agriculture: 50%
industry and services: 50% |
agriculture NA%, industry NA%, services NA% |
| Land boundaries | total: 2,046 km
border countries: Algeria 42 km, Mauritania 1,561 km, Morocco 443 km |
the land boundaries in the world total 250,472 km (not counting shared boundaries twice) |
| Land use | arable land: 0.02%
permanent crops: 0% other: 99.98% (2005) |
arable land: 10.58%
permanent crops: 1% other: 88.42% (1998 est.) |
| Languages | Hassaniya Arabic, Moroccan Arabic | 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 | - | all members of the UN plus Switzerland are parties to the statute that established the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or World Court |
| Life expectancy at birth | total population: NA
male: NA female: NA |
total population: 63.94 years
male: 62.28 years female: 65.67 years (2002 est.) |
| Literacy | NA | definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 77% male: 83% female: 71% (1995 est.) |
| Location | Northern Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean, between Mauritania and Morocco | - |
| Map references | Africa | Physical Map of the World, Political Map of the World, Standard Time Zones of the World |
| Maritime claims | contingent upon resolution of sovereignty issue | 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 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.) |
| Nationality | noun: Sahrawi(s), Sahraoui(s)
adjective: Sahrawi, Sahrawian, Sahraouian |
- |
| Natural hazards | hot, dry, dust/sand-laden sirocco wind can occur during winter and spring; widespread harmattan haze exists 60% of time, often severely restricting visibility | large areas subject to severe weather (tropical cyclones), natural disasters (earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions) |
| Natural resources | phosphates, iron ore | 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 |
| Political pressure groups and leaders | none | - |
| Population | 382,617
note: estimate is based on projections by age, sex, fertility, mortality, and migration; fertility and mortality are based on data from neighboring countries (July 2007 est.) |
6,233,821,945 (July 2002 est.) |
| Population below poverty line | NA% | - |
| Population growth rate | NA | 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 2, FM 0, shortwave 0 (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 | Muslim | 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 | NA | 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 | none; a UN-sponsored voter identification campaign not yet completed | - |
| Telephone system | general assessment: sparse and limited system
domestic: NA international: country code - 212; tied into Morocco's system by microwave radio relay, tropospheric scatter, and satellite; satellite earth stations - 2 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean) linked to Rabat, Morocco |
general assessment: NA
domestic: NA international: NA |
| Telephones - main lines in use | about 2,000 (1999 est.) | NA |
| Telephones - mobile cellular | 0 (1999) | NA |
| Television broadcast stations | NA | NA |
| Terrain | mostly low, flat desert with large areas of rocky or sandy surfaces rising to small mountains in south and northeast | the greatest ocean depth is the Mariana Trench at 10,924 m in the Pacific Ocean |
| Total fertility rate | NA | 2.7 children born/woman (2002 est.) |
| Unemployment rate | NA% | 30% combined unemployment and underemployment in many non-industrialized countries; developed countries typically 4%-12% unemployment (2001 est.) |
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