Germany

Germany “Deutschland”
As Europe's largest economy and second most populous nation (after Russia), Germany is a key member of the continent's economic, political, and defense organizations. European power struggles immersed Germany 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 SovietUnion 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 declineof 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 1999, Germany and 10 other EU countries introduced a common European exchange currency, the euro.

Location:

Central Europe, bordering the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, between theNetherlands and Poland, south of Denmark
Area:
total: 357,022 sq km
country comparison to the world: 62
land: 348,672 sq km
water: 8,350 sq km

land boundaries:
total: 3,621 km
border countries: Austria 784 km, Belgium 167 km, Czech Republic 646 km, Denmark 68 km, France 451 km, Luxembourg 138 km, Netherlands 577 km, Poland 456 km, Switzerland 334 km

climate:
Current Weather
temperateand marine; cool, cloudy, wet winters and summers; occasional warm mountain (foehn) wind

natural resources:
coal, lignite, natural gas, iron ore, copper, nickel, uranium, potash, salt, construction materials, timber, arable land

land uses:
arable land: 33.13%
permanent crops: 0.6%
other: 66.27% (2005)

irrigate land:
4,850 sq km

Total renewable water resources:
188 cu km

freshwater with drawal:
total: 38.01 cu km/yr (12%/68%/20%)
per capita: 460 cu m/yr

enviromental current issues:
emissions from coal-burning utilities and industries contribute to air pollution; acid rain, resulting from sulfur dioxide emissions, is damaging forests; pollution in the Baltic Sea from raw sewage and industrial effluents from rivers in eastern Germany; hazardous waste disposal;government established a mechanism for ending the use of nuclear power over the next 15 years; government working to meet EU commitment to identify nature preservation areas in line with the EU's Flora, Fauna, and Habitat directive


Enviromental international agreements:
party to: Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air Pollution-Persistent Organic Pollutants, Air Pollution-Sulfur85, Air Pollution-Sulfur 94, Air Pollution-Volatile Organic Compounds, Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic-Marine Living Resources, Antarctic Seals, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, TropicalTimber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands, Whaling
signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements

population:
82,329,758 (July 2009 est.)
country comparison to the world: 15

age structure:
0-14 years: 13.7% (male 5,768,366/female 5,470,516)
15-64 years: 66.1% (male 27,707,761/female 26,676,759)
65 years and over: 20.3% (male 7,004,805/female 9,701,551)

median rage:
total:43.8 years
male: 42.6 years
female: 45.2 years

migration rate:
2.19 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2009 est.)
country comparison to the world: 39

HIV/AIDS:
0.1% (2007 est.)
country comparison to the world: 122
people living with HIV/AIDS:
53,000 (2007 est.)
country comparison to the world: 64

Nationality:
noun: German(s)
adjective: German

etnicgroups:
German 91.5%,...