Somalia Info

Location: Eastern Africa, east of Ethiopia

Geography: Mostly flat plateau rising to hills in north.

Climate: Torrid in the north and hot in the south, irregular rainfall, hot and humid periods between monsoons.

Population: 9,925,640

Current Government Type: no permanent national government; parliamentary federal government

Political State: Overall, politically unstable.

Education Rates: Total school life expectancy - 3 years

Literacy Rates: Total population - 37.8%

Languages: Somali (official), Arabic, Italian, English

Religion: Sunni Muslim

Birth Rates: 42.71 births/1,000 population

Death Rates: 14.87 deaths/1,000 population

Life Expectancy: Total population - 50.4 years, Men - 48.49 years, Women - 52.37 years

Ethnic Groups: Somali 85%, Bantu and other non-Somali 15%

Legal System: No national system; a mixture of English common law, Italian law, Islamic sharia, and Somali customary law.

Suffrage: 18 years of age

Unemployment Rate: 59% (2009)

Population Below Poverty Line: 43%

Industries: Sugar refining, textiles, and wireless communication.

Communications: The public telecommunications system was almost completely destroyed or dismantled during the civil war; private companies offer limited local fixed-line service and private wireless companies offer service in most major cities while charging the lowest international rates on the continent.

Military Service: Somali Army, service for people aged 16-49

Transnational Issues: Ethiopian forces invaded southern Somalia and routed Islamist Courts from Mogadishu in January 2007; "Somaliland" secessionists provide port facilities in Berbera to landlocked Ethiopia and have established commercial ties with other regional states; "Puntland" and "Somaliland" "governments" seek international support in their secessionist aspirations and overlapping border claims; the undemarcated former British administrative line has little meaning as a political separation to rival clans within Ethiopia's Ogaden and southern Somalia's Oromo region; Kenya works hard to prevent the clan and militia fighting in Somalia from spreading south across the border, which has long been open to nomadic pastoralists.



CIA World Factbook
Somalia Online
Poverty in Somalia
Somalia - A Country in Turmoil