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Geography of Belarus - Definition |
| Related Words: Gaea, Ge, Tellus, Terra, Biosphere, Cartography, Geodesy, Geodetics, Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics, Geosphere, Globe, Hydrogeology |
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This article describes the geography of Belarus.
- Location
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- Eastern Europe, east of Poland
- Geographic coordinates
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- 53° 00′ N, 28° 00′ E
- Map references
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- Commonwealth of Independent States
- Area
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- Total: 207,600 km²
- Land: 207,600 km²
- Water: 0 km²
- Area comparative
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- Land boundaries
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- Coastline
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- 0 km (landlocked)
- Maritime claims
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- None (landlocked)
- Climate
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- Transitional between continental and maritime; cold winters (average January temperatures are in the range -8C to -2C), cool and moist summers (average temperature 15C to 20C).
- Terrain
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- Generally flat, containing much marshland
- Elevation extremes
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- Natural resources
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- Forests, peat deposits, small quantities of oil and natural gas, granite, dolomitic limestone, marl, chalk, sand, gravel, clay
- Land use
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- Arable land: 29%
- Permanent crops: 1%
- Permanent pastures: 15%
- Forests and woodland: 34%
- Other: 21% (1993 est.)
- Irrigated land
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- 1,150 km² (1998 est.)
- Water resources
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- About 20,000 rivers and streams, with the total length of 91,000 km, and about 11,000 lakes, including 470 lakes with the area exceeding 0.5 km² each. Naroch is the largest lake (79.2 km², the deepest point about 25 m). Significant amounts of swampy area, notably in the Polesie region.
- Natural hazards
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- NA
- Environment - current issues
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- Soil pollution from pesticide use.
- South-Eastern part of the country contaminated with fallout from 1986 nuclear reactor accident at Chornobyl, Ukraine, receiving about 60% of total fallout. Vast amounts of territory in Homyel and Mahilyow voblasts rendered uninhabitable. Roughly 7,000 km² (2,700 sq.mi.) of soil were contaminated by caesium-137 to levels greater than 15 curies per km², i.e., taken from human usage for indefinite time. In 1996 the areas contaminated over 1 curies per km² of caesium-137 constituted about 21% of the total territory (only 1% decrease compared to 1986), and in 2002 over 1.5 mln people still lived in this area.
- Environment - international agreements
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- Party to: Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air Pollution-Sulphur 85, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Marine Dumping, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands
- Signed, but not ratified: Law of the Sea
- Geography - note
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- Landlocked
Reference
Much of the material in this article is adapted from the CIA World Factbook 2000 and 2003.
External links
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