Germany

The Federal Republic of Germany, commonly known as Germany, is a federal republic in central Europe. Its capital is Berlin. It borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, and France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands to the west. The north borders the North Sea to the northwest and the Baltic Sea to the northeast. With the reunification of Germany in 1990, Germany's territory became the current 16 states, with 15 prefectures that made up the German Democratic Republic (formerly East Germany) and East Berlin being incorporated as 6 states into the Federal Republic of Germany. Germany is an industrial and exporting powerhouse that boasted the world's largest export volume for six consecutive years until 2008, and is an economic powerhouse with the fourth largest GDP in the world (based on exchange rate conversion) after the United States, the People's Republic of China, and Japan. Germany is one of the world's seven advanced nations (G7). Germany is a core country of the European Union (EU) along with France.