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: 9,230,000 (2020E—World Bank); 8,675,475 (2020E—U.S. Census). Area and population figures include East Jerusalem [Page 804](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. 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 include Gaza (most of which was turned over to ...