Germany
Geography - People - Economy - Government - Communications - Transportation - Military - Transnational IssuesCountry name - conventional long form : Federal Republic of Germany
Country name - conventional short form : Germany
Country name - local long form : Bundesrepublik Deutschland
Country name - local short form : Deutschland
Country name - former : German Empire, German Republic, German Reich
Government type : federal republic
Capital - name : Berlin
Capital - time difference : UTC+1 (6 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time)
National holiday : Unity Day, 3 October (1990)
Population : 82,369,552 (July 2008 est.)
Nationality - noun : German(s)
Nationality - adjective : German
Languages : German
Currency (code) : euro (EUR)
Currency code : EUR
Germany is located Central Europe, bordering the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, between the Netherlands and Poland, south of Denmark. The climate is temperate and marine; cool, cloudy, wet winters and summers; occasional warm mountain (foehn) wind. The terrain is lowlands in north, uplands in center, Bavarian Alps in south.
Background
This entry usually highlights major historic events and current issues and may include a statement about one or two key future trends.Background - 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 1999, Germany and 10 other EU countries introduced a common European exchange currency, the euro.
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