former: German Empire, German Republic, German Reich

local long form: Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Germany, the home of Oktoberfest, Mercedes Benz, and Dark Chocolate, is a 357,021 square kilometer nation with strategic location on the Northern European Plain and along the entrance to the Baltic Sea bordering: Austria, Belgium, The Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, Poland, and Switzerland. To give you a basic idea of Germany’s size, it’s about the size of Montana (yahoofacts, 2003) and with so many bordering nations you can see why Germany is a major trading outpost for Europe. With temperate marine weather, Germany is usually quite frigid throughout the year with wet, cloudy, and cool summers and cold winters. The terrain varies from lowlands in the north bordering the North and Baltic Seas to uplands in Central Germany, and the Bavarian Alps to the south. Germany’s resources are semi-abundant and include iron ore, coal, potash, timber, lignite, uranium, copper, natural gas, salt, nickel, as well as 33% of the country being arable land (1998 est.) Germany’s only problem is with its

The German economy is labeled as a “Soziale Marktwirtschaft” or social market economy. After WWII and the Nazi control of Germany they wanted to assure that the government would not have control or be able to intervene in economic issues (they learned from their mistakes) The only role that the government plays in the economy is much like what the US government does in protecting competition by assuring that Monopolies do not form. The government and powerful industry are what have kept standards of living equal even though the west transfers in excess of $70 Billion to the East each year for integration and modernization. GDP for 2001 in Germany was $1,873,854,000.00 and GNP (now referred to globally as GNI) was $1,947,951,000.00 ($23,398.00 per capita GNP) Inflation in Germany for 2002 was 1.3%, which is lower than the United States, France, England, and Canada. On January 1, 1999 the Euro (EUR) was introduced as a common monetary unit for all of the member nations of the European Union and on January 1, 2002, the euro became the sole currency for everyday transactions within the member countries, which includes Germany obviously. With such a strong and influential economy the standard of living has remained quite high in Germany despite being in a time of hardship with the increasing age of the population, economic growth being down, and unemployment being up.

With a 8.99/1000 birthrate and a 10.36/1000 deathrate (Cia.gov, 2002), only the small amount of foreign-born immigrants that come to Germany each year are keeping the population growth rate in the positive. Germany has even been considering performing a 180-degree turn on their current immigration policy by passing legislation to allow orderly immigration of highly skilled foreigners into the country. Anti-foreigner sentiment is high with the right-of-center Christian Democratic Union, the dominating political party in Germany, but it seems pragmatism will prevail and the legislation will pass regardless. If not, Germany’s population has been predicted to drop from 86 to 60 million in the next 50 years without new immigration legislation, this would mean economic disaster for the country. After years of only allowing immigrants with German Ancestry to enter the country, Germany is finally upgrading its policy. Countries like the US and Canada have been allowing these types of immigration for years and are ahead of the Germans by almost a decade in policy.

Some topics in this essay:
European Union, Eastern Europe, Polish Spanish, Germany FDI, Union January, Ports Harbors, Bavarian Alps, WWII Nazi, Jews Germany, Germany Jewish, european union, federal assembly, germany’s population, berlin wall, largest economy, germany’s economy, living germany, federal republic, frg gdr 1990, foreign direct investment, common monetary, target foreign direct, monetary unit, germany target foreign, gdr 1990 germany’s,