Key facts about Belarus

Belarus on the map of Europe

An introduction in facts and figures to this landlocked country in the north-east of Europe

Official Name

Republic of Belarus

President of Belarus

Aleksandr Lukashenko (1994 - present )

Prime Minister of Belarus

Total land area of Belarus

207,600 km²

Nationality of Belarus

Population – 9.408,4 million (on 1 January 2020)

• Life expectancy at birth – 74.4 years
• Population living in cities – 78%
• The capital is Minsk – 2.020,6 million inhabitants

Regional centres of Belarus (on 1 January 2020):

• Brest Oblast – 1.347,0 million inhabitants          (Brest – 339,7 thousand) 
• Vitebsk Oblast  – 1.133,4 million inhabitants         (Vitebsk – 364,8 thousand)  
• Gomel Oblast  – 1.386,6 million inhabitants          (Gomel – 510,3 thousand) 
• Grodno Oblast – 1.025,8 million inhabitants          (Grodno – 356,9 thousand)
• Mogilev Oblast – 1.023,0 million inhabitants          (Mogilev – 357,1 thousand)
• Minsk Oblast – 1.472,0 million inhabitants

Ethnicity

Languages spoken in Belarus

Belarusian and Russian

National holidays in Belarus

Independence Day, 3 July

Currency of Belarus

Belarusian rouble (Br)

Economic indicators

GDP (2019) Br132.0 billion; per capita: Br14.01 thousand

Commodity structure of export (2019):

• mineral products – 21.5%
• chemical industry production, rubber – 19.3%
• cars, equipment and vehicles – 17.6%
• black, nonferrous metals and products from them – 7.3%
• articles of food and agricultural raw materials – 16.6%
• others – 17.7%

Commodity structure of import (2019):

• mineral products – 25.6%
• cars, equipment and vehicles – 26.2%
• black, nonferrous metals and products from them – 9.5%
• chemical industry production, rubber – 14.3%
• articles of food and agricultural raw materials – 11.6%
• others – 12.8%

Main Business Partners of Belarus (2019)

Export:

• Russia
• Ukraine
• United Kingdom 
• Germany
• Poland
• Lithuania
• Kazakhstan
• Netherlands
• China 
• Brazil

Import:

• Russia
• China
• Germany
• Ukraine
• Poland
• Italy
• Turkey
• USA
• Netherlands
• Lithuania

Main Industries of Belarus

• metallurgical
• mechanical engineering, including tractors and agricultural, cars, machine-tool constructing and tool industry, instrument making, radio engineering, electro technical, electronic, optics-mechanical industry; and metal working
• chemical and petrochemical
• light industry
• food industry

Area of farmland in Belarus

8460 thousands hectares (2019)

Agriculture

Areas of speciality in agriculture: grain, potatoes, vegetables, sugar beet, flax, meat and dairy industry

Natural resources

• wood
• peat
• potash and rock salts
• small oil and natural gas fields
• granite
• dolomite
• limestone
• clay
• sand

Number of people in employment

4.33 million (2019)

Breakdown of employed population by type of economic activity (2019):

• production sector – 23.6%
• agriculture, hunting, forestry industry – 9.0%
• civil engineering – 6.2%
• transportation and communication – 6.9%
• retail; repairs of automobiles, household goods, and personal-use items – 14.6%
• education – 10.4%
• others – 26.6%

Unemployment in Belarus

8.8 thousand unemployed (2019); 4.2%

Communications

Number of mobile communication subscribers – 11.6 million (2019).

Penetration of LTE-powered mobile communication services – 75.5%. At present the services are available in Minsk and all the oblast capitals as well as major district capitals across the country.

Number of fixed telephony subscribers – 47.5 phones per 100 residents.

Number of Internet service subscribers and users  – over 11 million, including over 3.2 million of fixed broadband Internet access subscribers. According to the International Telecommunication Union, in 2016 Belarus was ranked 23rd by the number of broadband subscribers.

International bandwidth – 1,110Gbps.

Belarus is ranked 32nd in the Global ICT Development Index of the International Telecommunication Union (2017).

In the comparative Integrated Index for Postal Development the Belarusian postal service is ranked 21st out of 173 postal service operators (2020).

In 2018 Belarus moved up 11 points in comparison with 2016 and reached the 38th position in the UN E-Government Development Index (the index covers a total of 193 countries).

Transportation

Railways – 5480 km, including 1228 km of electric track (2019)

Highways – 102,600 km, including paved roads 90,000 km (2019)

Oil pipelines – 2,984 km

Gas pipelines – 7,901 km