Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in Western Asia on the southeastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. It is bordered by Lebanon in the north, Syria and Jordan in the east, and Egypt in the
south-west and has a population of over seven million people, Founded in 1948, Israel is a parliamentary democracy and the world's only Jewish state, with a population that includes citizens from many ethnic and religious backgrounds. (See also Israelis.) It has a technologically and industrially advanced economy, and was ranked 23rd out of 177 countries in the 2005 United Nations Human Development Index, the highest ranking in the Middle East and 3rd highest in Asia.
