st.)

Military expenditures - dollar figure: $1.82 billion (1996)

Military expenditures - percent of GDP: 13.7% (1996)

Transnational Issues

Disputes - international: no defined boundary with most of UAE, but
Administrative Line in far north
______________________________________________________________________

PACIFIC OCEAN
[Map of Pacific Ocean]

@Pacific Ocean:Geography

Location: body of water between Antarctica, Asia, Australia, and the
Western Hemisphere

Geographic coordinates: 0 00 N, 160 00 W

Map references: World

Area:
total: 165.384 million sq km
note: includes Bali Sea, Bellingshausen Sea, Bering Sea, Bering
Strait, Coral Sea, East China Sea, Flores Sea, Gulf of Alaska, Gulf of
Tonkin, Java Sea, Philippine Sea, Ross Sea, Savu Sea, Sea of Japan,
Sea of Okhotsk, South China Sea, Tasman Sea, Timor Sea, and other
tributary water bodies

Area - comparative: about 18 times the size of the US; the largest
ocean (followed by the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the
Arctic Ocean); covers about one-third of the global surface; larger
than the total land area of the world

Coastline: 135,663 km

Climate: planetary air pressure systems and resultant wind patterns
exhibit remarkable uniformity in the south and east; trade winds and
westerly winds are well-developed patterns, modified by seasonal
fluctuations; tropical cyclones (hurricanes) may form south of Mexico
from June to October and affect Mexico and Central America;
continental influences cause climatic uniformity to be much less
pronounced in the eastern and western regions at the same latitude in
the North Pacific Ocean; the western Pacific is monsoonal - a rainy
season occurs during the summer months, when moisture-laden winds blow
from the ocean over the land, and a dry season during the winter
months, when dry winds blow from the Asian land mass back to the
ocean; tropical cyclones (typhoons) may strike southeast and East Asia
from May to December

Terrain: surface currents in the northern Pacific are dominated by a
clockwise, warm-water gyre (broad circular system of currents) and in
the southern Pacific by a counterclockwise, cool-water gyre; in the
northern Pacific, sea ice forms in the Bering Sea and Sea of Okhotsk
in winter; in the southern Pacific, sea ice from Antarctica reaches
its northernmost extent in October; the ocean floor in the eastern
Pacific is dominated by the East Pacific Rise, while the western
Pacific is