1.1 Overview

A. Physical size:
Being the 4th largest nation in the world - next to Russia, Canada, and China, the United States (U.S.) has a land area of 3.54 million square miles, or 6.2% of the entire area of the world.

B. Population:
The U.S. is the 3rd most populous nation in the world - behind China and India. The estimated population in the U.S. by year 2000 is 275 million.

C. Economy:
The U. S. is the world's largest developed economy, with its GNP approximately the sum of the second economy (Japan) and the third largest economy (Germany), as illustrated in the table below:

World's Rank	Country	1997 GNP (US$ billion)
1	U.S.	7,690.0
2	Japan	5,149.2
3	Germany	2,364.6
4	France	1,533.6
5	United Kingdom	1,152.1
6	Italy	1,140.5
7	China	890.0

D. Business Structure:

Size of Employment	Number of Business	Portion of Total Business	Accumulative Percentage
1-4	6,300,000	60.95%	60.95%
5-9	1,850,000	17.90%	78.85%
10-49	1,700,000	16.45%	95.30%
50-99	300,000	2.90%	98.20%
100-249	130,000	1.26%	99.46%
250-499	31,500	0.30%	99.76%
500-999	13,000	0.13%	99.89%
1,000-4,999	9,200	0.09%	99.98%
5.000-9.999	1,250	0.01%	99.99%
Over 10.000	1,160	0.01%	100.00%
Total	10,336,110	100.00%

                Note: More than 98% of the U.S. business are small business (i.e., with 99 employees or less)

E. Natural resources:
The U.S. is one of world's top producers of commercial timber. In addition, it is rich in coal, copper, lead. phosphates, uranium, gold. iron, mercury, nickel, silver, tungsten, zinc. molybdenum, and potash.

F. Agricultural & meat products:
The U.S. is world's largest grower and exporter of wheat (maize), soybeans, cotton, tobacco, and meat. It is world's second largest producer of rice.