The Republic of Belarus (Belarusian: Рэспубліка Беларусь, English: the Republic of Belarus), abbreviated to the Republic of Belarus, was translated into Belolucia and called itself Belarus. It's a land locked country in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia in the East and North, Ukraine in the South and Poland, Lithuania and Latvian in the West. It covers an area of 207600 square kilometers and has a population of 9.6898 million (in 2008), most of them live near the capital Minsk or other big cities. Nearly 80% of the population is native born Belarusian, the main ethnic minorities are Russians, poles and Ukrainians. After 1995, Belarusian and Russian were set as official languages, the constitution of Belarus did not specify the state religion, but most people believed in the Orthodox Church, followed by Catholicism. Many Christian festivals, such as Easter, are set as national holidays.
Belarus has a good industrial foundation, the machinery manufacturing industry, metallurgical processing industry, machine tool and laser technology are relatively developed and advanced; it industry is relatively developed; agriculture and animal husbandry are also very developed. Belarus has established a customs union with Russia and Kazakhstan, and the trend of economic and military integration with Russia and Kazakhstan is gradually strengthening.
As of 2014, more than 10000 kinds of minerals have been identified in Belarus, among which the most important are oil, associated natural gas, peat, lignite and flammable slate, potash, halite, various building materials (building stone, facing stone, materials for cement and lime production, sand and gravel for construction and glass making, various clay, fresh water and mineral water. In addition, there are iron ore, gypsum, precious metals, apatite and aluminum ore).
Belarus has nearly 8 million hectares of forest with a coverage rate of 39%, ranking second only to Russia in the CIS, coniferous forest is the main tree species, followed by spruce, birch, oak and so on, covering an area of 1165 square kilometers, Belovezh nature reserve enjoys a high reputation in Europe. The timber reserves are about 1.093 billion cubic meters, and about 5 million tons of various kinds of timber are exported every year.
