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Bhutan (its capital Thimphu) and neighboring states
Country Comparisons:
2010: see chart
World Factbook: "The economy, one of the world's smallest and least developed, is based on agriculture and forestry, which provide the main livelihood for more than 60% of the population. Agriculture consists largely of subsistence farming and animal husbandry. Rugged mountains dominate the terrain and make the building of roads and other infrastructure difficult and expensive." 2007: 6.4%
The World Factbook describes drinking water as having improved for 99% of the urban population and 88% of the rural population and sanitation facility access as having improved for 87% of the urban population and 54% of the rural population.
Bhutan ranks well regarding corruption for counrties of its wealth but not so well in infant mortality.
Its public debt in 2009, at $57.8 was just a little under that of the United States in in 2010. Bhutan's revenues were just 7.79% of its GDP and only 51% of its expenditures -- worse than that of the United States and the worst imbalance for a country in the $3000 to $10,000 per capita wealth group.
Unemployment rate
2009: 4%
Birth and death rates per 1,000 population
2011: births 19.3, deaths 7.12, with some sense of population pressure being reported as sensed within the country.
Living in an urban area
2010: 35%
Religions
Lamaistic Buddhist 75%, Hinduism 25%
This is a landlocked and mostly mountainous country, about half the size of Indiana, between China and India.
Unicameral legislature, the National Assembly, can remove a monarch with two-thirds vote. Village-level elections with one vote per family. National Assembly consists of 105 members elected at the village level, 10 representative from religious bodies and 35 appointed by the monarch. Capital: Thimphu
Independence from India in 1949.
In 2006, Business Week magazine rated Bhutan the happiest country in Asia and the eighth-happiest in the world, based on a global survey.
Copyright © 2009-2011 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.
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