Belarus(1) occupies just over 200 thousand square kilometers of the East European Plain(2). A low feature, the Smolensk-Moskow Ridge(3) extends across the north center of the nation. The terrible drainage left over from glaciation is most evident in the Poles'ye(4) marshes that occupy the nation's south and continue into the Ukraine.
North of the ridge, the Northern Dzvina(5) River is the most important system. Its headwaters are in Russia and it exits westward into Latvia(6). The second most important is the Neman(7), which departs into Lithuania(8).
South of the ridge is the Dnieper(9) system, which includes the Pripet and the Berezina(10).
Less than ten million people live here (2007) and more than three quarters of them speak Belarusan(11) as a first language. Nearly three in 20 speak Russian natively and most others have learned it.(12).
More than 19 in 20 are Christians, at least in religious background. Somewhere between six and eight in ten are Orthodox, the rest mostly Roman Catholic.
Only one city tops a million: Minsk, the capital. It is located on the Svislach(13) River, on the southeastern edge of the Belarusan Ridge. Monuments include the Railway Station and the entry to the tractor factory, both Stalinist; the 18th century Cathedral of Saint Virgin Mary and the Island of Tears memorial church.
Indo-Europeans--specifically Balto-Slavs--moved into the area perhaps in the second millenium B.C.E. In any case Balts(14) are thought to have predominated for long before the Lithuanian state conquered the area in the 14th century. Belarusan evolved distinctly under the influence of its Lithuanian and Polish rulers. Russians arrive more recently, initially after the Polish state was dismantled, but most dramatically in the 20th century.
When the Lithuanian and Polish royalty married, the elite converted to Roman Catholic Christianity, with rural people subsequently slowly converting to one version or another of the world religion. The Polish-Lithuanian state was more tolerant than the German ones, and many German- (Yiddish-) speaking Jews moved here. After Russia forced Jews from further east into the 'pale', the percentage of Jews in this area topped 3 on 20; they were a majority in Minsk. Almost all of them were murdered by conquering Germans in the 20th century. In that same century, Russians forced Poles westward; they had been a minority comparable in magnitude to the Jews, and had constituted most of the balance of Minsk's residents.
The last 20th century demographic change was the decline in Christian belief and practice, whose effects have persisted after the government stopped promoting aetheism.
(1) The name means White Russia. It is also called Belorussia. It is somethimes transliterated as Byelarus'.
(2) This plain fades into the North European plain beyond this area. This part of the plain is also called the Russian Plain by Russians. The name, transliterated from Russian, is Vostochno-Evropeyskaya (or Russkaya) Ravnina. An alternate transliteration exists.
(3) Much of the ridge is called the Belarus Ja Hrada. The portion in eastern Belarus is sometimes called the Smolensk (Smolenskaya) Ridge. In transliteration from Russian, the entire feature is Smolensko-Moskovskaya Vozvyshennost'. An alternate transliteration exists.
(4) Also called the Pripet(Prypjac', Pryp'yat, Prypyat) Marshes. Polesye is an alternate transliteration.
(5) In transliteration, north is Zahadnaya. Alternate transliterations exists, some from Russian instead of Belarusan. The Russians, in transliteration, say Dvina. It Latvia, the river is called the Daugava.
(6) In a more formal transliteration, Latvija.
(7) Called the Nemunas in Lithuania, and the Neman in Kaliningrad Oblast.
(8) Formally called Leutuva.
(9) Called, in transliterated Belarusan, the Dnjapro; in transliterated Ukrainian, the Dnipro; and, in formally transliterated Russian, the Dniepr.
(10) Or Byarezima.
(11) Also called Belorussian.
(12) Some Belarusan speakers consider their language a dialect of Russian. Its dialects are within a continuum of Ukrainian, Belarusan and Russian.
(13) Also transltierated Svislac'.
(14) Eventually East Baltic, and finally Lithuanian, emerged as distinct languages.