Belarus

Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered on the northwest by Lithuania and Latvia, on the east by Russia, on the south by Ukraine, and on the west by Poland. Its area is about 207,600 square km (about 80,200 square mi). 

Belarus, topographic map

A Belorussian state developed in the Middle Ages around the city of Polotsk. From the 13th century it became incorporated within the Slavonic Grand Duchy of Lithuania and from 1569 there was union with Poland.

Belarus served as a battleground between the 16th and 18th centuries as wars were waged between Poland and Russia. 

With the partitioning of Poland in 1772, 1793, and 1795, Russia acquired present-day Belarus, then known as White Russia. 

In the Napoleonic wars, after the invasion by the French in 1812, the land was laid waste by retreating Russians. 

After the occupation of Poland by Germany in 1939, the USSR annexed the part of Belorussia that it had lost to Poland in 1921 to the White Russian SSR, thereby nearly doubling the area of the republic. 

In June 1941, during World War II, the Germans again invaded Belorussia; they were expelled in 1944. 

Except for certain small areas allocated to Poland, the 1939 boundaries of the Belorussian SSR were confirmed by the terms of the treaty between Poland and the USSR in 1945. 

25% of the Belarusian population was killed in World War II.

The nuclear Chernobyl disaster in 1986 contaminated 20% of the country with radiation, affecting hundreds of thousands of people and mutating thousands of new born. Its far reaching effects mean even today the people of the country having a high rate of cancer and birth defects. 

20% of Belarus' annual budget is currently spent on costs associated with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

On July 27, 1990 Belarus declared its right to self-governance, and The Republic of Belarus, emerged from behind the Iron Curtain on March 15, 1994.

Belarus sacked two top generals after a Swedish advertising agency illegally flew an airplane into Belarus in July 2012 that dropped hundreds of teddy bears carrying pro-democracy messages.

President Alexander Lukashenko was re-elected on Sunday, August 9, 2020 to a sixth term in office (with about 80% of all votes in his favor according to official results), having won every presidential election since 1994. The election was marred by allegations of widespread electoral fraud and tens of thousands of demonstrators turned out in Minsk the following Sunday to protest. The gathering appeared to be the largest protest in the country’s history.

Belarus is the only country in Europe that still has the death penalty on its statute book. Its last executions were in 2014.

Over forty percent of Belarus is forested.

Most of Belarus's population of 9.41million reside in the urban areas surrounding its capital city Minsk and other regional capitals.

Over 84.9% of Belarus's population are ethnic Belarusians, with sizable minorities of Russians, Poles and Ukrainians.

Since a controversial 1995 referendum, Russian has been an official language alongside Belarusian.

Source Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia