Interesting Facts About Israel
Did you know that...

You may already know some of these interesting facts about Israel, but we guarantee that you don't know them all! We hope you find this information as engaging as we do...

For your convenience, we've broken down the facts on Israel into topics. You can click on the topic that interests you or read through the entire page.

Israel Record Breaking Facts

Israel Technology Facts

Israel Economy and Business Facts

Miscellaneous Facts about Israel

Israel Quirky, Fun Facts

Interesting Facts About Israel
Record Breakers

Stopwatch symbolizing Israel's record breakers

The Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth, at 423 meters or 1,388 feet below sea level.

The Sea of Galilee is the lowest freshwater lake on earth, at 209 meters or 700 feet below sea level.

The Mount of Olives in Jerusalem is the oldest, continuously used cemetery in the world. The first recorded burials are from the First Temple period 3,000 years ago and burials continue there until today.

Jericho is the oldest continously inhabited city in the world, with the first settlement there dating back 11,000 years ago to the year 9,000 BCE.

Interesting Facts About Israel
Technology

Did you ever wonder why Israel is so famous for its innovative technology?

Avi Jorisch attempts to answer this question in his bestseller book Thou Shalt Innovate. Its fascinating premise is that the underlying Jewish concept of 'tikkun olam' which means repairing the world is the driving force behing the innovation in Israel. He provides fifteen, intriguing examples to prove his point.

If it sounds interesting, you read more about the book here.

And now for interesting Israel technology facts:

Israel is the leading country using solar water heating per capita. Almost 90% of Israeli homes heat their water with solar heating sytems, as mandated by law for all homes except highrise towers who lack adequate roof space for the solar panels. Using sunlight to generate hot water saves Israel 3% of its national energy costs. That means 2 million barrels of oil are saved every year.

Israel is in the Middle East, one of the driest regions in the world, but Israel no longer worries about drought or water shortages. Why? Because desalinated water is the source of almost half of the nation's water and should provide 70% within a decade. Israel has the largest and cheapest desalination plants in the world, thanks to improved engineering of desalination technology.

The first cellular phone was developed at the Motorola facility in Israel.

Voice mail was first developed in Israel.

Intel's Pentium-4 and Centrino processors were developed in Israel.

The first messenger technology was developed in Israel for AOL and ICQ.

Interesting Facts About Israel -
Economics and Business

Israel facts relating to business and economics

Israel has more startups per capita than any other country in the world. In flat numbers, Israel has the second highest concentration worldwide of technology startups after Silicon Valley in the United States. Called the 'startup nation,' there are over 3,000 high-tech and start-ups in Israel.

The tiny country of Israel with a population of 9 million people has the largest amount of companies listed in NASDAQ after the U.S. and Canada.

Flower Power. Tiny Israel provides 5% of the world's flowers. On a typical Valentine's Day, Israel send 60 million flowers to Europe, 245 million red roses are exported every year. Israel's main competitor in the flower business is Africa because of weather, space and cheap labor, but Israel's advantage is its reliance on innovation, both in terms of agritechnology and marketing.

Interesting Facts about Israel
Miscellaneous

Revival of the Dead. Did you know that Hebrew is the only documented case of the revival of a dead language?

Imagine that Latin was being spoken by millions of people around the world. For about 1,500 years, Hebrew was a 'dead' language. It was only used for prayers and religious studies. Thanks to the ephiphany and vision of Eliezer Ben Yehuda, a young Jew born in Eastern Europe in 1857, millions of people in the world today speak Hebrew. Its the vibrant national language of Israel and is taught and spoken by Jews around the world.

Land of Milk and Honey. Israeli dairy cows are the most productive in the world.

An average Israeli cow produces about 25,500 pounds of milk per year. The runner up is the American cow which produces about 19,000 pounds, followed by Canada at 17,000 pounds, Europe at 14,000 pounds in Europe and Australia at 10,000 pounds per year.