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 Moldova| Facts & Figures |
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| President:
Vladimir Voronin (2001) Prime
Minister: Zinaida Greceanii (2008) Land
area: 12,885 sq mi (33,371 sq km); total area: 13,067 sq mi
(33,843 sq km) Population (2009 est.):
4,320,748 (growth rate: 0.0%); birth rate: 11.1/1000; infant mortality
rate: 13.1/1000; life expectancy: 70.8; density per sq km: 129
Capital and largest city (2003 est.):
Chisinau, 772,500 (metro. area), 709,900 (city
proper) Other large cities:
Tiraspol, 209,800; Beltsy, 175,400; Bendery (Tighina), 144,900 Monetary unit: Leu More Facts & Figures |
GeographyMoldova (formerly Moldavia) is a landlocked
republic of hilly plains lying east of the Carpathian Mountains between
the Prut and Dniester (Dnestr) rivers. The country is sandwiched between
Romania and Ukraine. The region is very fertile, with rich black
soil (chernozem) covering three-quarters of the territory.
GovernmentDemocratic republic.
HistoryMost of what is now Moldova was the independent
principality of Moldavia in the 14th century. In the 16th century, it came
under Ottoman Turkish rule. Russia acquired Moldavian territory in 1791,
and more in 1812 when Turkey gave up the province of Bessarabia—the area
between the Prut and Dniester rivers—to Russia in the Treaty of Bucharest.
Turkey held the rest of Moldavia but it was passed to Romania in 1918.
Russia did not recognize the cession of this territory.
In 1924, the USSR established Moldavia as an
Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. As a result of the Nazi-Soviet
Nonaggression Pact of 1939, Romania was forced to cede all of Bessarabia
to the Soviet Union in 1940. The Soviets merged the Moldavia ASSR with the
Romanian-speaking districts of Bessarabia to form the Moldavian Soviet
Socialist Republic. During World War II, Romania joined Germany in the
attack on the Soviet Union and reconquered Bessarabia. But Soviet troops
retook the territory in 1944 and reestablished the Moldavian SSR.
For many years, Romania and the USSR disputed
each other's territorial claims over Bessarabia. Following the aborted
coup against Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, Moldavia proclaimed its
independence in Sept. 1991 and changed its name to the Romanian spelling,
Moldova.
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