Germany |
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| OVERVIEW |
| Background |
As Europe's
largest economy and most populous nation, Germany remains
a key member of the continent's economic, political, and defense
organizations. European power struggles immersed the country
in two devastating World Wars in the first half of the 20th
century and left the country occupied by the victorious Allied
powers of the US, UK, France, and the Soviet Union in 1945.
With the advent of the Cold War, two German states were formed
in 1949: the western Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and
the eastern German Democratic Republic (GDR). The democratic
FRG embedded itself in key Western economic and security organizations,
the EC, which became the EU, and NATO, while the Communist
GDR was on the front line of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. The
decline of the USSR and the end of the Cold War allowed for
German unification in 1990. Since then, Germany has expended
considerable funds to bring eastern productivity and wages
up to western standards. In January 2002, Germany and 11 other
EU countries introduced a common European currency, the euro.
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| Natural
resources |
iron ore, coal, potash,
timber, lignite, uranium, copper, natural gas, salt, nickel,
arable land |
| Land
use |
arable land: 33.88%
permanent crops: 0.65%
other: 65.47% (1998 est.) |
| Population |
82,398,326 (July 2003
est.) |
| Ethnic
groups |
German 91.5%, Turkish
2.4%, other 6.1% (made up largely of Serbo-Croatian, Italian,
Russian, Greek, Polish, Spanish) |
| Religions |
Protestant 34%, Roman
Catholic 34%, Muslim 3.7%, unaffiliated or other 28.3% |
| Languages |
German |
| Literacy |
definition: age 15 and
over can read and write
total population: 99% (1977 est.)
male: NA%
female: NA% |
| Capital |
Berlin |
| Government
type |
federal republic |
| Independence |
18 January 1871 (German
Empire unification); divided into four zones of occupation
(UK, US, USSR, and later, France) in 1945 following World
War II; Federal Republic of Germany (FRG or West Germany)
proclaimed 23 May 1949 and included the former UK, US, and
French zones; German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany)
proclaimed 7 October 1949 and included the former USSR zone;
unification of West Germany and East Germany took place 3
October 1990; all four powers formally relinquished rights
15 March 1991 |
| National
holiday |
Unity Day, 3 October (1990)
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