Did You Know?

Here are some basic general knowledge facts:

• The world population is presently around 6,302,309,691 as of July 2003.
• The smallest country in the world, both in terms of population and size is The Vatican, which is a landlocked country in Italy. It's population is about 911. The next two smallest countries are Tuvalu (an island nation in the Pacific Ocean) and Nauru-an island republic in the South Pacific Ocean, formerly known as Pleasant Island.
• The most populated country in the world is China (1,294,839,541), followed by India and the U.S.
• China however, is not the biggest country in the world. Russia(17,075,200 km) is, followed by Canada and then the U.S. China is ranked 4th.
• Next to The Vatican (o.44 km), the 2nd and 3rd smallest country, in terms of size, is Monaco and Nauru.
• There are presently 193 countries in the world-191 United Nations member states and Taiwan and The Vatican.
• India has the most official recognized languages, which is a total of 23 languages.
• The most spoken language in the world (counting only "first language" speakers), is Mandarin (14.37%) followed by Hindi (6.02%) and English (5.61%). Spanish (5.59%) is 4th.
• English is the current lingua franca of the world.
• In some countries, such as Iraq, Italy and Spain, there is an official language for the country, but other languages are co-official in some important regions. Some countries, such as the United States, have no official languages, but there are official languages in some U.S. states. Finally, some countries have no official languages, such as Australia, Eritrea, Luxembourg, Sweden or Tuvalu.
• Some interesting country mottos: Luxembourg-Mir wëlle bleiwe wat mir sin (Luxembourgeois, "We want to stay what we are"), Mauritius-Stella clavisque Maris Indici (Latin, "Star and key of the Indian Ocean"), Nepal-"The motherland is worth more than the kingdom of heaven", Thailand-"Land of smiles".
• Two countries in the world are split up (separated by other countries). They are the U.S. and Russia.
• The most dense country, in terms of population, is Monaco, followed by Singapore and then The Vatican.
• The country with the least population density is Mongolia, followed by Namibia.
• The longest rivers are the Nile (6,690 km), Amazon (6,762 km), Chang Jiang (Yangtze) (6,380 km).
• The largest "lake" in the world is the Caspian Sea, and the deepest is Lake Baikal in Siberia. The term lake is also used to describe a feature such as Lake Eyre which is dry most of the time but fills up under seasonal conditions of heavy rainfall.
• Finland is known as 'The Land of the Thousand Lakes' and Minnesota is known as 'The Land of Ten Thousand Lakes'.
• Over 60% of the world's lakes are in Canada; this is because of the deranged drainage system that dominates the country.
• Kielder Water is Northern Europe's largest man-made lake.
• South America's Angel Falls is the world's highest at 979 m (3230 ft), in Venezuela.
• Africa's Boyoma Falls, with the world's highest volume, 17,000 m³/s (600,000 ft³/s), on the Congo River.
• Africa's Victoria Falls, the world's largest, on the Zambezi River.
• Rhine Falls, Europe's largest waterfall is located in Switzerland.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org