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Estonia, its capital Tallinn, and surrounding states
Country Comparisons:
2010: see chart
Unemployment rate:
2010:17.5%
Public Debt:
2010: 7.7% of GDP
Household income or consumption by percentage share:
2004: Top ten percent of the population: 27.7%; bottom ten percent: 2.7%
Living in an urban area
2010: 69%
Ethnicities
2008 census: stonian 68.7%, Russian 25.6%, Ukrainian 2.1%, Belarusian 1.2%, Finn 0.8%, other 1.6%
Religions
2000 census: Evangelical Lutheran 13.6%, Orthodox 12.8%, other Christian (including Methodist, Seventh-Day Adventist, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal) 1.4%, unaffiliated 34.1%, other and unspecified 32%, none 6.1%
By the Baltic Sea and Gulf of Finland, north of Latvia and west of Russia.
Parliamentary republic. President popularly elected to a 5-year term and eligible for a second term.
Capital: Tallinn.
The Estonians have been ruled by the Danes, Swedes, Germans and by the Russians. They were independent following the fall of Russia's tsar Nicholas II and were forced back under Russian, or Soviet, rule in 1940. They were emotional about getting Russian troops out and winning back their independence, which came with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The last of the Russian troops left in 1994.
From Soviet times, Estonians suffered air pollution from oil-shale burning power plants and extensive pollution of war. By the year 2000 the air pollution was reduces to 80 percent what they had been in 1980, and by 2000 the discharging of unpurified wastewater into the environment was reduced to one-twentieth the amount in 1980. At points, coastal water remains polluted.
In 2004, Estonia joined the European Union, and upset Russia
SOURCES:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
Copyright © 2009-2011 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.