Countries
Key facts
- Capital
- Jerusalem
- Region
- Asia, Western Asia
- Population
- 10,122,800 (2025)
- Area
- 20,770 km²
- Currency
- Israeli new shekel (ILS)
- Languages
- Hebrew, Arabic, English
- Calling code
- +972
- Internet domain
- .il
- ISO codes
- IL, ISR, 376
- Time zone
- UTC+2:00
- United Nations
- Member state
- Postal code pattern
- ####### (# = digit, @ = letter)
Land and position
Israel covers about 20,770 square kilometres. By area it ranks 155th among the 250 countries and territories on this site. It is a little smaller than El Salvador and a little larger than Slovenia. It shares a land border with 5 neighbours: Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria. Its centre lies at about 31° north, 35° east, in the northern hemisphere.
Neighbours
People
About 10.1 million people live in Israel (World Bank, 2025). That makes it the 96th most populous of the 246 places on this site with a figure, with about 0.12 percent of the world's people. On average there are 487 people to each square kilometre. About 92 percent of people live in towns and cities (World Bank, 2025). A baby born there can expect to live about 83 years (World Bank, 2024). Languages listed for it: Hebrew, Arabic, English. A person from Israel is called Israeli.
Money and economy
The currency is the Israeli new shekel (code ILS, symbol ₪). It is also the main currency of Palestine. The World Bank puts the size of its economy (GDP) at about US$ 611 billion (2025), which is about US$ 60,337 for each person (2025).
Time
Israel uses one time zone, UTC+2:00 (Asia/Jerusalem). Clocks are moved for daylight saving time in part of the year.
Time now: loading
Offsets are for January 2026. See Time Zones for a converter.
Largest cities
| City | People |
|---|---|
| Jerusalem | 971,800 |
| Tel Aviv | 432,892 |
| Haifa | 285,316 |
| Petaẖ Tiqva | 270,403 |
| Rishon LeTsiyyon | 259,275 |
| Bnei Brak | 229,996 |
City figures are from GeoNames and count the city itself, not the wider urban area. They can be some years old, so use them to see the order of size.
More in Western Asia
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Georgia, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar. See the whole region.
Figures were collected on 11 November 2026 from the World Bank, GeoNames and the open countries data set. See About and data sources. Borders and names follow those sources and do not express any view on disputed territory.