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Territory.
The Republic of Belarus has a very favorable geopolitical situation in the center of Europe. It is situated at the crossroads of trunk-railways and highways, systems of oil- and gas-pipe lines, flow lines between Western Europe and Asia. On the East Belarus borders on Russian Federation, on the West on Poland, on the North on Latvia and Lithuania, on the South on the Ukraine. The distance between Minsk, the capital of Belarus, and the capitals of the neighboring states is as follows: up to Vilnius – 115 miles, to Riga – 296, to Warsaw – 342, to Kiev – 347, to Moscow – 435miles. Administratively, Belarus can be divided into 6 main regions: Brest region, Vitebsk region, Gomel region, Grodno region, Minsk region and Mogilev region; the city of Minsk can be singled out as an independent unit.
The territory of Belarus is 80,15 thousand square miles. Its length from north to south is 348 miles, from west to east – 404 miles. The length of the borders is 1845 miles.
Population.
At the beginning of the year 2006 nearly 9,99 million people resided in the Republic of Belarus. According to the census of the year 1999, considering the overall quantity of inhabitants the percentage of the Belarusian was 81,2%, the Russians – 11,4%, the Poles – 3,9%, the Ukrainians – 2,4%, the Jews – 0,3%, other nationalities – 0,8%. The share of the rural population is 30,5%. The Belarusian abroad is more than 3 mln. people.
There are two state languages in Belarus: Belarusian and Russian. Nearly 50% of the population belong to different confessions (80% are Orthodox, 14% – Catholics, 2% – Protestants).
The amount of able-bodied citizens at the beginning of 2006 was 5926,2 mln. people. Manpower resources (men at the age of 16-59, women – 16-54 and working pensioners) in 2005 made up 60,9% from the overall number of inhabitants.
Nature and natural resources.
Belarus has all favorable natural conditions for human activity: temperate continental climate with mild winters and warm summers. The duration of winter is nearly 120 days. The average temperature in January is - 42,8°F, in July – 64,4°F. The annual amount of atmospheric precipitation is 215-275 inches.
There are 20,8 thousand rivers and nearly 11 thousand lakes in Belarus. The essential part of the Belarussian landscape is the swamps which occupy about 13% of the territory. The agricultural holdings take up 45% of the territory, including 30% of plough-lands.
On the territory of Belarus about 30 different kinds of minerals have been found; more than 4000 deposits have been explored, 600 of which are being exploited at present. Belarus takes the second place in Europe for the deposits of potassium salts and there is a huge salt basin with the capacity of 22 billion of tones in the region of Pripyat caving in. The deposits of granite in Mikashevichi can be estimated at 628 mln. cubic yards. There are 63 oilfields, known in the country, with initially extractive deposits of 164 mln. tones, 30 of them are still being exploited. The geological deposits of peat are estimated at 4,4 billion tones. The general supplies of make up nearly 3,9 billion cubic yards. Shale oils, brown coal (152 mln.tones), iron ores, dolomites, phosphorites, copper, nickel, lead, zinc, molybdenum and other elements have also been found on the territory of Belarus.
Due to the exploitation of its own fields Belarus can provide the annual extraction of 1,9 mln. tones of oil, 5 mln tones of peat, 4 mln tones of kali, 230 000 tones of salt, 4 mln of dolomites, 5 mln of cement materials, 9,15 mln cubic yards of mortar sand and sandy-gravel materials, 1,96 mln cubic yards of clay for the production of bricks and lightweight aggregates, 220 000 tones of glass-making sand, 600 000 tones of molding sand, 1,3 billion cubic yards of fresh underground and 460 000 cubic yards of mineral water, etc.
A large amount of such natural resources as edible, melliferous, medicinal, technical and other useful herbs and plants is concentrated in the forests. Annually, about 1,5 thousand tones of mushrooms, 0,4 thousand tones of medicinal materials, 34 thousand liters of birch sap, 16 thousand tones of hazel nuts, 20 thousand tones of barras are stored up in Belarus. Annually, the increase of wood runs up to 32,7 mln cubic yards with the total storage of 1,3 billion cubic yards.
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