rates: East Caribbean dollars (EC$) per US$1 - 2.70 (fixed rate since 1976)
Fiscal year: 1 April - 31 March
Transportation———————
Railways:
total: 77 km
narrow gauge: 64 km 0.760-m gauge; 13 km 0.610-m gauge (used almost
exclusively for handling sugarcane)
Highways:
total: 240 km
paved: NA km
unpaved: NA km
Ports: Saint John's
Merchant marine:
total: 367 ships (1,000 GRT or over) totaling 1,573,063
GRT/2,147,243 DWT
ships by type: bulk 6, cargo 247, chemical tanker 6, combination
bulk 1, container 72, liquefied gas tanker 2, oil tanker 3,
refrigerated cargo 14, roll-on/roll-off cargo 16
note: a flag of convenience registry: Germany owns 12 ships,
Slovenia 3, Croatia 2, Cyprus 1, and US 1 (1995 est.)
Airports:
total: 3
with paved runways 2 438 to 3 047 m: 1
with paved runways under 914 m: 2 (1995 est.)
Communications———————
Telephones: 6,700
Telephone system:
domestic: good automatic telephone system
international: 1 coaxial submarine cable; satellite earth station -
1 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean); tropospheric scatter to Saba
(Netherlands Antilles) and Guadeloupe
Radio broadcast stations: AM 4, FM 2, shortwave 2
Radios: NA
Television broadcast stations: 2
Televisions: 28,000 (1993 est.)
Defense———
Branches: Royal Antigua and Barbuda Defense Force, Royal Antigua
and Barbuda Police Force (includes the Coast Guard)
Manpower availability:
males age 15–49: NA
males fit for military service: NA
Defense expenditures: exchange rate conversion - $1.4 million, 1%
of GDP (FY90/91)
======================================================================
@Arctic Ocean——————
Map—
Location: 90 00 N, 0 00 E—body of water mostly north of the
Arctic Circle
Geography————
Location: body of water mostly north of the Arctic Circle
Geographic coordinates: 90 00 N, 0 00 E
Map references: Arctic Region
Area:
total area: 14.056 million sq km
comparative area: slightly more than 1.5 times the size of the US;
smallest of the world's four oceans (after Pacific Ocean, Atlantic
Ocean, and Indian Ocean)
note: includes Baffin Bay, Barents Sea, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea,
East Siberian Sea, Greenland Sea, Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait, Kara
Sea, Laptev Sea, Northwest Passage, and other tributary water bodies
Coastline: 45,389 km
International disputes: some maritime disputes (see littoral states); Svalbard is the focus of a maritime boundary dispute between Norway and Russia
Climate: polar climate characterized by persistent cold and relatively narrow annual temperature ranges; winters characterized by continuous darkness, cold and stable weather conditions, and clear skies; summers characterized by continuous daylight, damp and foggy weather, and weak cyclones with rain or snow
Terrain: central surface covered by a perennial drifting polar icepack that averages about 3 meters in thickness, although pressure ridges may be three times that size; clockwise drift pattern in the Beaufort Gyral Stream, but nearly straight line movement from the New Siberian Islands (Russia) to Denmark Strait (between Greenland and Iceland); the icepack is surrounded by open seas during the summer, but more than doubles in size during the winter and extends to the encircling land masses; the ocean floor is about 50% continental shelf (highest percentage of any ocean) with the remainder a central basin interrupted by three submarine ridges (Alpha Cordillera, Nansen Cordillera, and Lomonsov Ridge) lowest point: Fram Basin −4,665 m highest point: sea level 0 m
Natural resources: sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits, polymetallic nodules, oil and gas fields, fish, marine mammals (seals and whales)
Environment:
current issues: endangered marine species include walruses and
whales; fragile ecosystem slow to change and slow to recover from
disruptions or damage
natural hazards: ice islands occasionally break away from northern
Ellesmere Island; icebergs calved from glaciers in western Greenland
and extreme northeastern Canada; permafrost in islands; virtually
icelocked from October to June; ships subject to superstructure
icing from October to May
international agreements: NA
Geographic note: major chokepoint is the southern Chukchi Sea (northern access to the Pacific Ocean via the Bering Strait); strategic location between North America and Russia; shortest marine link between the extremes of eastern and western Russia, floating research stations operated by the US and Russia; maximum snow cover in March or April about 20 to 50 centimeters over the frozen ocean; snow cover lasts about 10 months
Government—————
Data
