GERMANY

• Country Name : Germany
• Year Founded:
• Population: 82,329,758 (July 2009 est.)
• Primary Language: German
• Ethnic Make-up: German 91.5%, Turkish 2.4%, other 6.1% (made up largely of Greek, Italian, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish)
• Political System: The German political system operates under a framework laid out in the 1949 constitutional document known as the Grundgesetz (Basic Law).
• Year Entered the European Union: West Germany was a founding member of the European Community (EC) in 1957, which became the European Union in 1993.
• Representative of the European Union (include party):
• Type of Economy: Industrial base.
• Currency: Euro
• Current Exchange rate for American Currency: 1 Euro = 1.3561 U.S. Dollars
• GDP: $2.863 trillion (2008 est.)
• Percentage of Trade within the European Union:.
• Unemployment Rate: 7.9%
note: this is the International Labor Organization's estimated rate for international comparisons; Germany's Federal Employment Office estimated a seasonally adjusted rate of 10.8% (2008 est.)
• Chief Exports: $1.354 trillion f.o.b. (2007 est.)
• Key Imports: raw materials, fuel (oil and gas) and food products.
• Major Religions: Protestant 34%, Roman Catholic 34%, Muslim 3.7%, unaffiliated or other 28.3%
• Surrounding Countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland
• Literacy Rate: definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 99%
male: 99%
female: 99% (2003 est.)
• One Interesting Fact: German people are the second biggest consumers of beer in the world (after the Irish), with an average of 119 litres per person per year (or 0.32 l per day).