The Federal Republic of Germany is one of the world's leading industrialized countries, located in the heart of Europe . It is bordered to the north by the North Sea , Denmark and the Baltic Sea , to the east by Poland , and the Czech Republic , to the south by Austria and Switzerland , and to the west by France , Luxembourg , Belgium and the Netherlands .

The Federal Republic of Germany is a member state of the United Nations , NATO , the G8 nations and a founder member of the EEC , now the European Union .

Geography

Since reunification of the two parts of the country Germany has resumed its traditional role as the major centre between Scandinavia in the north and the Mediterranean region in the south, as well as between the Atlantic west and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe .

The territory of Germany stretches from the high mountains of the Alps (highest point: the Zugspitze at 2,962 m) in the south to the shores of the North Sea in the north-west and the Baltic in the north-east. In between are found the forested uplands of central Germany and the low-lying lands of northern Germany (lowest point: Neuendorfer / Wilstermarsch at 3.54 meters below sea level), traversed by some of Europe's major rivers such as the Rhine , Danube and Elbe .

Thanks to its central situation Germany has more neighbours than any other European country; these are Denmark in the north, Poland and the Czech Republic in the east, Austria and Switzerland in the south, France and Luxembourg in the south-west and Belgium and the Netherlands in the north-west.

Economy

A 50 cent German euro coin features the Brandenburg Gate, the symbol of division and newly found unity

Germany is the world's third largest economy measured by gross domestic product , placed behind the United States and Japan . As of 2004 , Germany was also the world's largest exporter for the second year in a row, despite the skyrocketing strength of the euro . Its major trading partners include France , the United States , the United Kingdom , Italy and the Netherlands . A major issue of concern remains the persistently high unemployment rate - especially in the eastern Länder -, and partly as a result of it, weak domestic demand which slows down economic growth.

For many years now agriculture and fishery in Germany have been in a state of decline. Poor earnings and lack of profitability are counted to the main reasons for the failure of many medium and small concerns. The main crops grown are potatoes , wheat , barley , sugar beet and cabbage . Germany ranks among the world's largest producers of milk , milk products and meat .

As in most other large economic nations, Germany's industrial sector has declined in favour of the service sector. Germany is among the world's largest and most technologically advanced producers of iron , steel , cement , chemicals , machinery , motor vehicles , machine tools and electronics , as well as a world leader in the shipbuilding industry. Major automakers like DaimlerChrysler and Volkswagen , and huge international corporations like Siemens rank among the world's largest firms.

The service sector has grown steadily in recent years and now contributes the largest share of GDP. This sector includes tourism . As of 2004 , the largest numbers of foreign visitors to Germany came from the Netherlands , followed by the United States and the United Kingdom .

Germany is lacking in natural raw materials, if one disregards the hard coal deposits in the Ruhr area , in the Aachen district and in the Saarland , where mining is profitable only thanks to state subsidies. Brown coal from mines in the Leipziger Bucht and the Niederlausitz is still the major energy source in the eastern Länder , while mineral oil enjoys this position in the western Länder. The current red-Green coalition government is pursuing a long-term strategy of phasing out nuclear power in favour of renewable sources of energy.

Foreign relations

Together with France , the united Germany is playing a leading role in the European Union . Germany is at the forefront of European states seeking to advance the creation of a more unified and capable European political, defense, and security apparatus. In 1999 , Chancellor Schröder 's government broke with the German post-war tradition of keeping a notably low profile in international relations by sending German troops into combat for the first time since World War II , when it joined the NATO war against Yugoslavia . More recently, a German permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council has become one of Schröder's major foreign-policy objectives.

Germany and France were protagonists in the coalition of nations opposing the 2004 military intervention in Iraq, a war that was purportedly initiated by the United States and a "Coalition of the Willing" (including Poland, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, Japan, Mongolia, and Vanuatu) to secure weapons of mass destruction which were never found.

Demographics

Germany has many large cities but only three with a population of one million or more (Berlin: 3 million, Hamburg: 1.8 million, Munich: 1.2 Million); the population is thus much less centralized and oriented towards a single large capital than in most other European countries. The largest cities are Berlin , Hamburg , Munich (München), Cologne (Köln), Frankfurt am Main , Essen , Dortmund , Stuttgart , Düsseldorf , Bremen , Duisburg and Hanover .

By far the largest urban conurbation is the Rhine - Ruhr region including the Düsseldorf-Cologne district. Leaving aside the metropolitan areas of the cities with over a million inhabitants, other large heavily populated areas are the Rhein-Main Region around Frankfurt/Main, Offenbach and Wiesbaden , the Stuttgart Region , the Rhine - Neckar region around Mannheim and Ludwigshafen , the Erzgebirge foothills around Chemnitz and Zwickau , the central Elbe valley around Dresden , the Halle - Leipzig area, as well as the catchment areas of Hanover and Nuremberg .

As of 31 December 2003, about 7.3 million non-citizen residents were living in Germany. By far the largest number came from Turkey , followed by Serbia and Montenegro , Italy , Greece , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Poland , Croatia , Austria , the United States , Macedonia and Slovenia . About 2/3s of these have been in the country for more than 8 years, 20% were born in Germany; both groups qualify for citizenship after recent changes in immigration law (2002 data), if the individuals involved choose to apply for it (which regularly involves renunciation of previous citizenship(s)). Germany is still a primary destination for political and economic refugees from many developing countries , but the number of asylum seekers has been dropping in recent years, reaching about 50,000 in 2003. A new immigration law recently took effect (1 January 2005), which provides a more systematic treatment of immigration issues as well as increased support for German language classes for immigrants.

An ethnic Danish minority of about 50,000 people lives in Schleswig , mostly close to the Danish border, in the north; a small number of Slavic people known as the Sorbs lives in the states of Saxony (about 40,000) and Brandenburg (about 20.000). The Frisian language is mother tongue to about 12,000 speakers in Germany, the rest living in the Netherlands . In rural areas of Northern Germany Low Saxon is widely spoken.

There are also a large number of ethnic German immigrants from the former Soviet Union area (1.7 million), Poland (0.7 million) and Romania (0.3 million) ( 1980 – 1999 totals), who are automatically granted German citizenship, and thus do not show up in foreign resident statistics; unlike the foreigners they have been settled by the government almost evenly spread throughout Germany. Many of them speak the languages of their former resident countries at home.

Germany has one of the world's highest levels of education . Since the end of World War II , the number of youths entering universities has more than tripled, but university attendance still lags behind many other European nations. In the annual league of top-ranking universities compiled by Shanghai Jiaotong University in 2004 , Germany came 4th overall, but with only 7 universities in the top 100 (USA: 51). The highest ranking university, at no. 45, was the TU Munich .