American soldier with Afghan children
A few years ago there was a study that showed Americans to be geographically illiterate. Can you point out Afghanistan on a map? How much do you know about its physical characteristics, imports, exports or culture? I'm embarrassed to say, my geographic knowledge is pretty poor.
My nephew has just been deployed to Afghanistan, so that's where I'm going to begin my effort to improve my geographic knowledge base. When he left the US on Friday, March 28th, we knew only that he was going to Afghanistan. He called his mom a week later, so we know he has arrived, but because of security precautions, he can't give anymore tinformation than that. When a particular region or city makes the headlines, I'll feature that location.
- Total area: 250,000 square miles; roughly the size of Texas
- Bordering nations: China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan
- Population: 32.7 million; California has 35 million
- Arable land: 12%
- Gross national product (GDP): $35 billion; US $13.5 trillion
- Per capita income: $1,000 (source, US CIA; World Bank reports $801)
- Life expectancy: 44 years
- Infant mortality: 157 per 1,000 live births (1 in 6 infants die before its first birthday)
- Literacy (age 15, able to read and write): Total, 28.1%; male, 43.1%; female, 12.6%
- Malnutrition (age<5, underweight): 41.2% (as of 2000, the last year data was available)