Country
Countries A-Z
Israel
State of Israel
Medinat Yisrael (Hebrew)
Dawlat Israil (Arabic)
Political Status: Independent republic established May 14, 1948; under multiparty parliamentary regime.
Area: 8,463 sq. mi. (21,920 sq. km), including inland water (172 sq. mi., 445 sq. km).
Population: 8,193,000 (2016E—UN); 8,174,527 (2016E—U.S. Census). Area and population figures include East Jerusalem (27 sq. mi. [70 sq. km] prior to subsequent unilateral expansion), which Israel occupied in 1967 and formally annexed in 1980 in an action not recognized by the UN or the United States (which maintains its embassy in Tel Aviv). Also included is a 444-square-mile (1,150 sq. km) sector of the Golan Heights to which Israeli forces withdrew under a 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria and which was placed under Israeli law in December 1981. The area figures do not ...