Title
Abstract
A landlocked nation, Belarus is located in central-eastern Europe, with Poland and Russia on the western and eastern borders, Ukraine to the south, and Latvia and Lithuania to the north. The climate is between continental and maritime, with cold winters and cool summers. Much of the terrain is flat, and there are several square kilometers of marshland. Much of southern Belarus was contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986; while Ukraine was host to the disaster, the radioactive fallout harmed Belarusian territory worse than Ukrainian land, contaminating more than 20 percent of Belarusian land and leading to, at one count, approximately 400,000 cancer deaths.
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2006
Publisher Statement
Copyright © 2006 Facts On File. This book chapter first appeared in World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties.
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Recommended Citation
Hass, Jeffrey K. "Republic of Belarus." In World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties, edited by Neil Schlager, Jayne Weisblatt, and Orlando J. Pérez, 111-16. 4th ed. Vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, 2006.