n delimiting 80% of their common border,
leaving certain small, strategic segments and the maritime boundary
unresolved; OSCE observers monitor volatile areas such as the
Pankisi Gorge in the Akhmeti region and the Argun Gorge in Abkhazia;
UN Observer Mission in Georgia has maintained a peacekeeping force
in Georgia since 1993; Meshkheti Turks scattered throughout the
former Soviet Union seek to return to Georgia; boundary with Armenia
remains undemarcated; ethnic Armenian groups in Javakheti region of
Georgia seek greater autonomy from the Georgian government;
Azerbaijan and Georgia continue to discuss the alignment of their
boundary at certain crossing areas

Refugees and internally displaced persons:

refugees (country of origin): 1,100 (Russia)
IDPs: 220,000-240,000 (displaced from Abkhazia and South Ossetia)
(2007)

Illicit drugs:

limited cultivation of cannabis and opium poppy, mostly for domestic
consumption; used as transshipment point for opiates via Central
Asia to Western Europe and Russia

This page was last updated on 18 December, 2008

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@Germany

Introduction
Germany

Background:

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.

Geography
Germany

Location:

Central Europe, bordering the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, between
the Netherlands and Poland, south of Denmark

Geographic