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June 2008: Denmark is among the top three countries in Europe with the shortest waitig time in places such as banks, restaurants, train stations and supermarkets. The average line in Denmark has 3.2 persons.
North of Germany, on a peninsula bordering the Northern and Baltic Seas. Slightly smaller than Massachusetts. Low and flat to rolling hills.
Sixty-six percent of the country is under cultivation. Around 12 percent is deciduous or coniferous forest. Around 10 percent is meadow, heath, marshland, bogs, sandhills and lakes.
The Kingdom of Denmark is a constitutional monarchy. It is a member of NATO and the European Union.
It was the base of the Viking raiders, organized as a unified state in the 900s, and adopted a constitution in 1849.
Figures unless otherwise stated are from the CIA Factbook.
Estimated per capita GDP:
2007 $37,400 (ranks 24th)
2006 $37,000
2005 $34,800
2004 $32,000
2003 $31,200
GDP annual growth rate estimated for 2007: 1.7 percent. (Ranks 193rd.) The happiest of people with stablity but one of the lower growth rates.
Denmark's economic success is built on high-tech agriculture, advanced small-scale capitalist industry and exports of machinery, instruments, meat and meat products, dairy products, fish, chemicals, furniture, ships and windmills. Danish agriculture produces a surplus of foods which are exported.
In 2003 6.2 percent of its exports went to the United States. It imports from the United States were too little for listing.
Denmark exports more food and energy than it imports, and it enjoys a balance of payments surplus.
Unemployment estimated for 2004: 6.2 percent.
Military expenditures as a percentage of GDP: 1.28 (2007)
Typical of Scandinavian countries, government extends to the nation extensive welfare.
Gender Gap: The World Economic Forum lists Denmark as fourth in the world in the elimination of a gender gap.
Deaths: 10.25. Births: 10.71 down from 11.36 in 2005
Estimate for 2008: 5.48 million, up from 5.43 million in 2005. Density: density is 126.4 square kilometers according to Denmark's official website in June, 2008. Growth rate for 2008: 0.295 percent per year.
Once the most notorious of Vikings who plundered churches and monasteries, the Danes report with some humor an observation by a British observer in 1939, as follows: "A few decades of material prosperity and the ministrations of an over-paternal Government seem to have sapped the spirit of a Viking race which can point to 1500 years of vigorous and independent history."
More arriving than leaving. A net gain of 2.49 per 1,000 population.
Infant mortality estimate for 2008: 4.4 deaths for every 1,000 live births.
Average life expectancy estimate for 2008: 78.13.
Living with HIV/AIDS, ages 15 to 49: 0.2 percent (2003).
In 1999, Denmark spent $2,785 per person on health care, compared to $4,271 for the United States.
For a single worker without children, in the year 2001, including contributions to Social Security, a Dane earning an average wage paid 44.2 percent of his or her income for taxes. The highest such taxes were in Belgium at 55.6 percent.
In 2003, Denmark spent $302.72 per capita on foreign aid, compared to $23.76 for the United States.
Nationmaster.com gives Denmark a happiness rating of 91 percent, with Sweden and the Netherlands - behind the leader, Iceland, at 94 percent.
Its happiness is not the result of a history of military victories. According to Denmark's website, "Very bluntly speaking, it can be claimed that the present configuration of Denmark is the result of 400 years of forced relinquishments of land, surrenders and lost battles."
Denmark has been listed in the top ten.
SOURCES:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
http://www.nationmaster.com/index.php
Copyright © 2008 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.