Head of state: Queen Elizabeth II, represented by a governor-general Prime minister: Danny Philip
President : Vladimir Putin
Population
584,578
142,517,670
Life Expectancy
74.420 years
66.460 years
Capital City
Moscow
Largest city
Honiara (population: 56,298)
Moscow (population: 10,381,200)
Human Development Index
0.591
NA
GDP per capita
$17,000 US
Literacy Rate
%
99.4%
Corruption Perception Index
2.9
2.1
Percentage of Women in Parliament
0%
NA
Wealthiest Citizens
NA
Mikhail Prokhorov ($9.5bn US)
Unemployment Rate
6.600%
Death Penalty
Abolished
Abolished in practice
Political System
parliamentary democracy
federation
Independence date
24 August 1991 (from Soviet Union)
Religions
Church of Melanesia 32.8%, Roman Catholic 19%, South Seas Evangelical 17%, Seventh-Day Adventist 11.2%, United Church 10.3%, Christian Fellowship Church 2.4%, other Christian 4.4%, other 2.4%, unspecified 0.3%, none 0.2% (1999 census)
Russian Orthodox 15-20%, Muslim 10-15%, other Christian 2% (2006 est.) note: estimates are of practicing worshipers; Russia has large populations of non-practicing believers and non-believers, a legacy of over seven decades of Soviet rule
Languages
Melanesian pidgin in much of the country is lingua franca; English (official; but spoken by only 1%-2% of the population); 120 indigenous languages
Russian, many minority languages
Exports
petroleum and petroleum products, natural gas, wood and wood products, metals, chemicals, and a wide variety of civilian and military manufactures
External Debt
$519,400,000,000 US
Exchange Rate
Russian rubles (RUB) per US dollar - 24.3 (2008 est.), 25.659 (2007), 27.19 (2006), 28.284 (2005), 28.814 (2004)
Military Budget as percentage of GDP
3.900%
Beijing Olympics Medal Count
0
72
Location
Oceania, group of islands in the South Pacific Ocean, east of Papua New Guinea
Northern Asia (the area west of the Urals is considered part of Europe), bordering the Arctic Ocean, between Europe and the North Pacific Ocean
Area
28,896 km sq
17,098,242 km sq
Coastline
5,313 km
37,653 km
Climate
tropical monsoon; few extremes of temperature and weather
ranges from steppes in the south through humid continental in much of European Russia; subarctic in Siberia to tundra climate in the polar north; winters vary from cool along Black Sea coast to frigid in Siberia; summers vary from warm in the steppes to cool along Arctic coast
