(CBS)
As Europe's largest economy and second most populous nation, Germany is a key member of the continent's economic, political, and defense organizations.
European power struggles immersed Germany in two devastating World Wars in the first half of the 20th century and left the country occupied by the victorious Allied powers of the US, UK, France, and the Soviet Union in 1945.
With the advent of the Cold War, two German states were formed in 1949: the western Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the eastern German Democratic Republic (GDR).
The democratic FRG embedded itself in key Western economic and security organizations, the EC, which became the EU, and NATO, while the Communist GDR was on the front line of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. The decline of the USSR and the end of the Cold War allowed for German unification in 1990. Since then, Germany has expended considerable funds to bring Eastern productivity and wages up to Western standards.
In January 1999, Germany and 10 other EU countries introduced a common European exchange currency, the euro.
Source: CIA World Fact Book
(AP)
82,329,758 (July 2009 est.)
Age structure: 0-14 years: 13.7% (male 5,768,366/female 5,470,516) 15-64 years: 66.1% (male 27,707,761/female 26,676,759) 65 years and over: 20.3% (male 7,004,805/female 9,701,551) (2009 est.)
Median age: total: 43.8 years male: 42.6 years female: 45.2 years (2008 est.)
Population growth rate: -0.053% (2009 est.)
Birth rate: 8.18 births/1,000 population (2008 est.)
Death rate: 10.8 deaths/1,000 population (2008 est.)
Net migration rate: 2.19 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2009 est.) Urbanization: urban population: 74% of total population (2008) rate of urbanization: 0.1% annual rate of change (2005-2010)
Sex ratio: at birth: 1.06 male(s)/female under 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female 15-64 years: 1.04 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.72 male(s)/female total population: 0.97 male(s)/female (2009 est.)
Infant mortality rate: total: 3.99 deaths/1,000 live births male: 4.41 deaths/1,000 live births female: 3.55 deaths/1,000 live births (2009 est.)
Life expectancy at birth: total population: 79.26 years male: 76.26 years female: 82.42 years (2009 est.)
Total fertility rate: 1.41 children born/woman (2009 est.)
HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate: 0.1% (2007 est.)
HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS: 53,000 (2007 est.)
HIV/AIDS - deaths: fewer than 500 (2007 est.)
Nationality: noun: German(s) adjective: German
Ethnic groups: German 91.5%, Turkish 2.4%, other 6.1% (made up largely of Greek, Italian, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish)
Religions: Protestant 34%, Roman Catholic 34%, Muslim 3.7%, unaffiliated or other 28.3%
Languages: German
Literacy: definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 99% male: 99% female: 99% (2003 est.)
School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education): total: 16 years male: 16 years female: 16 years (2006)
Education expenditures: 4.6% of GDP (2004)
People - note: second most populous country in Europe after Russia
(AP)
The German economy - the fifth largest economy in the world in PPP terms and Europe's largest - began to contract in the second quarter of 2008 as the strong euro, high oil prices, tighter credit markets, and slowing growth abroad took their toll on Germany's export-dependent economy. At 1.7% in 2008, GDP growth is expected to be negative in 2009.
Recent stimulus and lender relief efforts will make demands on Germany's federal budget and undercut plans to balance its budget by 2011. Strong growth in 2007 led unemployment in 2008 to fall below 8%, a new post-reunification low.
This suggested the reforms launched by the former government of Chancellor Gerhard SCHOEDER, deemed necessary due to chronically high unemployment and low average growth, had had the desired effect. The current government of Chancellor Angela MERKEL has initiated other reform measures, such as a gradual increase in the mandatory retirement age from 65 to 67 and measures to increase female participation in the labor market.
Germany's aging population, combined with high chronic unemployment, has pushed social security outlays to a level exceeding contributions, but higher government revenues from the cyclical upturn in 2006-07 and a 3% rise in the value-added tax cut Germany's budget deficit to within the EU's 3% debt limit.
The modernization and integration of the eastern German economy - where unemployment exceeds 30% in some municipalities - continues to be a costly long-term process, however, with annual transfers from west to east amounting to roughly $80 billion.
While corporate restructuring and growing capital markets have set strong foundations to help Germany meet the longer-term challenges of European economic integration and globalization, Germany's export-oriented economy has proved a disadvantage in the context of weak global demand.
GDP (purchasing power parity): $2.863 trillion (2008 est.)
GDP (official exchange rate): $3.818 trillion (2008 est.)
GDP - real growth rate: 1.7% (2008 est.)
GDP - per capita (PPP): $34,800 (2008 est.)
GDP - composition by sector: agriculture: 0.9% industry: 30.1% services: 69% (2008 est.)
Labor force: 43.62 million (2008 est.)
Labor force - by occupation: agriculture: 2.4% industry: 29.7% services: 67.8% (2005)
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.) Household income or consumption by percentage share: lowest 10%: 3.2% highest 10%: 22.1% (2000) Distribution of family income - Gini index: 27 (2006) Investment (gross fixed): 18.9% of GDP (2008 est.) Budget: revenues: $1.614 trillion expenditures: $1.579 trillion (2008 est.) Public debt: 62.6% of GDP (2008 est.) Inflation rate (consumer prices): 2.8% (2008 est.) Central bank discount rate: NA
Commercial bank prime lending rate: 5.96% (31 December 2007) Stock of money: NA note: see entry for the European Union for money supply in the Euro Area; the European Central Bank (ECB) controls monetary policy for the 16 members of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU); individual members of the EMU do not control the quantity of money and quasi money circulating within their own borders
Stock of quasi money: NA
Stock of domestic credit: $5.081 trillion (31 December 2007) Market value of publicly traded shares: $2.106 trillion (31 December 2007)
Agriculture - products: potatoes, wheat, barley, sugar beets, fruit, cabbages; cattle, pigs, poultry
Industries: among the world's largest and most technologically advanced producers of iron, steel, coal, cement, chemicals, machinery, vehicles, machine tools, electronics, food and beverages, shipbuilding, textiles
Industrial production growth rate: 2.2% (2008 est.)
Electricity - production: 594.7 billion kWh (2007 est.)
Electricity - consumption: 549.1 billion kWh (2006 est.)
Electricity - exports: 62.31 billion kWh (2007 est.)
Electricity - imports: 42.87 billion kWh (2007 est.)
Oil - production: 148,100 bbl/day (2007 est.)
Oil - consumption: 2.456 million bbl/day (2007 est.)
Oil - exports: 563,400 bbl/day (2005)
Oil - imports: 3.026 million bbl/day (2005)
Oil - proved reserves: 367 million bbl (1 January 2008 est.)
Natural gas - production: 17.96 billion cu m (2007 est.)
Natural gas - consumption: 97.44 billion cu m (2007 est.)
Natural gas - exports: 12.22 billion cu m (2007 est.)
Natural gas - imports: 88.35 billion cu m (2007 est.)
Natural gas - proved reserves: 254.8 billion cu m (1 January 2008 est.)
Current account balance: $267.1 billion (2008 est.)
Exports: $1.53 trillion f.o.b. (2008 est.)
Exports - commodities: machinery, vehicles, chemicals, metals and manufactures, foodstuffs, textiles
Exports - partners: France 9.7%, US 7.5%, UK 7.3%, Italy 6.7%, Netherlands 6.4%, Austria 5.4%, Belgium 5.3%, Spain 5% (2007)
Imports: $1.202 trillion f.o.b. (2008 est.)
Imports - commodities: machinery, vehicles, chemicals, foodstuffs, textiles, metals
Imports - partners: Netherlands 12%, France 8.6%, Belgium 7.8%, China 6.2%, Italy 5.8%, UK 5.6%, US 4.5%, Austria 4.4% (2007)
Reserves of foreign exchange and gold: $136.2 billion (31 December 2007 est.)
Debt - external: $4.489 trillion (30 June 2007)
Stock of direct foreign investment - at home: $924.7 billion (2008 est.)
Stock of direct foreign investment - abroad: $1.36 trillion (2008 est.)
Exchange rates: euros (EUR) per US dollar - 0.6734 (2008 est.), 0.7345 (2007), 0.7964 (2006), 0.8041 (2005), 0.8054 (2004)
Obama Storms The Continent
Germany School Shooting
Author Thomas Friedman on Obama's Afghanistan plan and the war on terror.
