luxembourg

let's talk about luxembourg. i heard the other day & looked it up & found confirmation -- they have the highest per capita gross domestic product which is pretty impressive if you consider places like saudi arabia or kuwait w/ their oil riches. luxembourg was formerly big into steel, but is now into other industries and also into the financial sector, and also this - skype & ebay are based there. huh - who knew?

luxembourg's population is 500,000 people. size is 999 sq miles. let's just boost that up a nidge and say it's 1000 sq miles b/c that's easier to calculate. 500,000/1000 = 500 people per sq mile. what? that seems a wee bit jam packed. can that be right?

here's an interesting tidbit - luxembourg is 175th in size of all the 194 independent countries of the world. firstly, what are the smaller countries, and secondly, isn't that interesting that there are 194 independent countries in the world, and finally, there are like 20 smaller than luxembourg. huh. luxembourg is ruled by a grand duke and they also have a parliament, so i am not sure how those two fit together exactly, but it would appear that it's sort of like the u-s-a govt except the role of president is being played by the grand duke.