Algeria | |
|---|---|
| Land Area | 2381741km² |
| Land Area + Seaarea | |
| Population | 40263711 |
| Population density | 16.9 / km² |
Algeria ( (listen) al-JEER-ee-ə, Arabic: الجزائر al-Jazā'ir), officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. The capital and most populous city is Algiers, located in the far north of the country on the Mediterranean shore. With an area of 2,381,741 square kilometres (919,595 sq mi), Algeria is the tenth-largest country on earth, and the largest by area from the African Union and the Arab world. With an estimated population of over 44 million, it is the eighth-most populous country in Africa. Algeria is bordered to the northeast by Tunisia, to the east by Libya, to the southeast by Niger, to the southwest by Mali, Mauritania, and the Western Saharan territory, to the west by Morocco, and to the north by the Mediterranean Sea. The country has a semi-arid geography, with the majority of the populace living in the fertile north and the Sahara dominating the geography of the south. This arid geography makes the country very vulnerable to climate change.Pre-1962 Algeria has known many empires and dynasties, including early Numidians, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Umayyads, Abbasids, Idrisid, Aghlabid, Rustamid, Fatimids, Zirid, Hammadids, Almoravids, Almohads, Zayyanids, Spaniards, Ottomans and finally, the French colonial empire. The majority of the populace is Arab-Berber, practicing Islam and using the official languages of Arabic and Berber. However, French functions as an administrative and education language in certain contexts, and Algerian Arabic is the primary spoken language. Algeria has a semi-presidential republic, with local constituencies comprising 58 provinces and 1,541 communes. Algeria is a regional and middle power. It has the highest human development index of all non-island African countries and one of the biggest economies on the continent, based mostly on energy exports. Algeria has the 16th largest oil reserves in the world and the second biggest in Africa, while it has the ninth largest reserves of natural gas. Sonatrach, the national oil company, is the largest company in Africa, supplying large amounts of natural gas to Europe. Algeria has one of the largest militaries in Africa and the largest defence budget. It is a member of the African Union, the Arab League, OPEC, the United Nations, and the Arab Maghreb Union, of which it is a founding member.
Source: WikipediaCzech Republic | |
|---|---|
| Land Area | 77247km² |
| Land Area + Seaarea | |
| Population | 10509311 |
| Population density | 136.0 / km² |
The Czech Republic ( (listen); Czech: Česká republika [ˈtʃɛskaː ˈrɛpublɪka] (listen)), also known by its short-form name, Czechia ( (listen); Czech: Česko [ˈtʃɛsko] (listen)), is a landlocked country in Central Europe bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast and Slovakia to the southeast, making it one of only two European Union (EU) memebers, the other being Luxembourg, to be completely surrounded by the EU. The Czech Republic has hilly landscape that covers an area of 78,866 square kilometers (30,450 sq mi) with a mostly temperate continental climate and oceanic climate. It is a unitary parliamentary republic, with 10.7 million inhabitants. Its capital and largest city is Prague, with 1.3 million residents; other major cities are Brno, Ostrava, Olomouc and Pilsen. The Czech Republic is a developed country with an advanced, high income social market economy. It is a welfare state with a European social model, universal health care, and tuition-free university education. It ranks 13th in the UN inequality-adjusted human development and 14th in the World Bank Human Capital Index ahead of countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and France. It ranks as the eleventh safest and most peaceful country and performs strongly in democratic governance. The Czech state was formed in the late ninth century as the Duchy of Bohemia under the Great Moravian Empire. In 1002, the duchy was formally recognized as an Imperial State of the Holy Roman Empire, and became the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1198, reaching its greatest territorial extent in the 14th century. Prague was the imperial seat in periods between the 14th and 17th century. The Bohemian Reformation of the 15th century led to the Hussite Wars, which resulted in a period of confessional pluralism and relative religious tolerance. Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the whole Crown of Bohemia was gradually integrated into the Habsburg Monarchy. The Protestant Bohemian Revolt (1618–20) against the Catholic Habsburgs led to the Thirty Years' War. After the Battle of the White Mountain, the Habsburgs consolidated their rule, eradicated Protestantism, reimposed Catholicism, and adopted a policy of gradual Germanization. With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Bohemian Crown lands became part of the Austrian Empire (1804 to 1867) and the Czech (Bohemian) language and literature experienced a revival as a consequence of widespread romantic nationalism. In the 19th century, the Czech lands became the industrial powerhouse of the monarchy and were subsequently the core of the First Czechoslovak Republic, which was formed in 1918 following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I. Czechoslovakia was the only democracy in Central Europe during the interwar period (after the May Coup in Poland, in 1926). However, parts of the country were occupied by Germany in World War II, while the Slovak region became a German puppet state. Czechoslovakia was liberated in 1945 by the Soviet Union and the United States. Most of the German-speaking minority were expelled following the war. The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia won a plurality in the 1946 elections and after the 1948 coup d'état established a one-party communist state under Soviet influence. Increasing dissatisfaction with the regime culminated in 1968 to the reform movement known as the Prague Spring, which ended in a Soviet-led invasion. Czechoslovakia remained occupied until the 1989 Velvet Revolution, which peacefully ended communist rule and reestablished democracy and a market economy. On 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully dissolved, with its constituent states becoming the independent states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union (EU) in 2004. It is also a member of the OECD, the United Nations, the OSCE, and the Council of Europe.
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