Geographical Location. The Republic of Belarus (Belarus) is located in the middle of Europe, on the divide of the Baltic and Black Seas. The republic’s capital is Minsk. Belarus borders Poland in the west, Lithuania in the northwest, Latvia and Russia in the north, Russia in the northeast and east, and Ukraine in the south. The total state border length is 2,969 km. The borderline passes through the lowland terrain without encountering expressed natural obstructions, thereby facilitating construction of thoroughfares and promoting intensive economic relations. One of the main Eurasian lines, including the shortest communication routes from central and eastern Russia’s regions to the countries of West Europe, and also between the Baltic and Black Seas run through Belarus. The republic’s capital — Minsk — is located apart from capitals of neighboring states at the following distances: Vilnius — 215 km, Riga — 470 km, Warsaw — 550 km, Kiev — 580 km, Moscow — 700 km, and Berlin — 1,060 km.

The area size of Belarus is 207.6 thousand square kilometers. It stretches for maximum 650 km from west to east and 560 km from north to south. The republic ranks 13th in the area size among the European states and 6th among the CIS countries (following Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan). In Europe, Belarus is only second to Great Britain and Rumania in the area size, and its area is more than 2.2 times that of Portugal and Hungary and about 5 times that of the Netherlands and Switzerland.

The relief of Belarus is mostly flat and hilly, with a mean elevation above sea level being 160 meters. The highest elevation above sea level is 345 meters (the mount of Dzerzhinskaya, Dzerzhinsky District, Minsk Region). The lowest elevation above sea level is 80-90 meters (the valley of the Neman River, Grodno Region). The flat country offers favorable conditions for migration of the population, farming, construction industrial enterprises, transportation and engineering communications, promotion of the tourism industry and recreation services.

The climate of Belarus is moderately continental with mild and humid winter, warm summer and moist fall. January mean temperature is –6.7oC, that of July — +17.8oC. The annual precipitation is 550-650 mm on the low country and 650-750 mm on the flat country and hills. An average vegetation period is 184-208 days. Climatic conditions in Belarus are favorable for growing major cereal crops, vegetables, fruit trees and shrub vegetation of the middle belt of the East Europe and specifically for cultivating potato, fiber flax, annual grasses, and fodder root crops.

Mineral Resources. About 30 types of minerals have been explored in Belarus (over 4,000 deposits and fields of mineral resources). Of them, potassium salts are most important, with the republic holding one of the leading positions in Europe as regards their commercial deposits. Rock salt deposits in Belarus are actually inexhaustible. Explored commercial resources of Mozyr, Davidov and Storobin deposits exceed 22 billion tons.

The country is rich in nonmetallics, namely, granites, dolomites and dolomitized limestone, marl and chalk, low-melting and refractory clay, loam and sand and gravel materials. Raw materials for producing natural dyes are available (marsh iron ore, ochre, glauconite, etc.). Belarus has abundant resources of mineral water promoting the construction of sanatoriums and spas and also the companies to sell and export mineral medical and table water. 63 sources have been explored with the total yield of 155,572 m³/day.

The republic has sufficiently abundant raw material sources for production of construction materials. The country, however, experiences a shortfall in high-quality glass-making sands and clays.

Belarus has abundant peat fields; however, peat deposits are mainly exhausted as resource sources due to intensive extraction. Total geological resources are estimated at 4.4 billion tons. Currently, the resources subject to extraction amount to 600 million tons, while the remaining portion is located either within the boundaries of environmental zones or is the component of the republic’s land reserves. Sapropels form an important natural resource, with the reserves being estimated at 3 billion m³. An integrated utilization of peat and sapropel resources is of critical importance. Oil reserves are small and, therefore, production is low. Brown and slate coal deposits have been stricken in Belarus. However, they cannot be used in the near future at large-sized commercial power-generating facilities because of the low calorific power and high ash content. In general, local fuel and energy resources, including associated gas and fuel wood may cover only 12% of the total domestic needs for fuel of the country’s economy.

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