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 – 9.200,6 million (on 1 January 2023)

• Life expectancy at birth – 74.5 years
• Population living in cities – 78%
• The capital is Minsk – 1.995,5 million inhabitants

Regional centres of Belarus (on 1 January 2023):

• Brest Oblast – 1.315,4 million inhabitants          (Brest – 342,4 thousand) 
• Vitebsk Oblast  – 1.091,9 million inhabitants         (Vitebsk – 359,1 thousand)  
• Gomel Oblast  – 1.347,5 million inhabitants          (Gomel – 501,8 thousand) 
• Grodno Oblast – 998,6 thousand inhabitants          (Grodno – 358,7 thousand)
• Mogilev Oblast – 989,7 thousand inhabitants          (Mogilev – 353,3 thousand)
• Minsk Oblast – 1.462,0 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 (2022) Br 191.4 billion; per capita: Br20.73 thousand

GDP (2021) Br 176.8 billion; per capita: Br19.01 thousand

GDP (2020) Br 149.7 billion; per capita: Br15.96 thousand

GDP (2019) Br134.7 billion; per capita: Br14.30 thousand

Commodity structure of export (2020):

• articles of food and agricultural raw materials – 19.6%
• mineral products – 13.3%
• chemical industry production, rubber – 19.7%
• textiles and textile articles – 3.0%
• articles of wood, pulp and paper – 6.3%
• black, nonferrous metals and products from them – 7.6%
• cars, equipment and vehicles – 19.2%
• others – 11.3%

Commodity structure of import (2020):

• articles of food and agricultural raw materials – 12.9%
• mineral products – 21.1%
• chemical industry production, rubber – 16.3%
• textiles and textile articles – 3.3%
• articles of wood, pulp and paper – 2.3%
• black, nonferrous metals and products from them – 10.1%
• cars, equipment and vehicles – 26.8%
• others – 7.2%

Main Business Partners of Belarus (2021)

Export:

• Russia
• Ukraine
• Netherlands
• Poland
• Germany

Import:

• Russia
• China
• Germany
• Ukraine
• Poland

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

Belarus ranked 47th out of 152 countries in the 2020 edition of the Competitive Industrial Performance Index (CIP) that is compiled by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.

Area of farmland in Belarus

8,283,900 hectares (as of late 2020)

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

4.21 million (2022)

Breakdown of employed population by type of economic activity (2022):

• production sector – 23.8%
• wholesale and retail trade; repairs of automobiles – 14.3%
• education – 10.4%
• agriculture, forestry, fishing industry – 8.6%
• transportation, storage, postal services and courier delivery  – 6.7%
• civil engineering – 6.1%
• information and communications – 3.3%
• others – 26.8%

Unemployment in Belarus

4.6 thousand unemployed (2022)

Communications

Number of mobile communication subscribers – 11.77 million (2022).

Penetration of LTE-powered mobile communication services – 98%. 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 12 million, including over 3.2 million of fixed broadband Internet access subscribers.

International bandwidth – 2,230 Gbps (2021)

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

In the comparative Integrated Index for Postal Development by the Universal Postal Union the Belarusian postal service is ranked 20th out of 170 postal service operators in 2020 (21st out of 172 countries in 2019).

In 2020, Belarus reached the 40th position in the UN E-Government Survey (the index features a total of 193 countries).

Transportation

Railways – 5.474,1 km, including 1.369,5 km of electric track (2022)

Highways – 103,400 km, including paved roads 90,100 km (2022)

Oil pipelines – 2,766.3 km

Oil product pipelines – 1,137.9 km

Gas pipelines – 7,901.6 km