Lithuania

Lithuanian lands were united under MINDAUGAS in 1236; over the next century, through alliances and conquest, Lithuania extended its territory to include most of present-day Belarus and Ukraine. By the end of the 14th century Lithuania was the largest state in Europe. An alliance with Poland in 1386 led the two countries into a union through the person of a common ruler. In 1569, Lithuania and Poland formally united into a single dual state, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This entity survived until 1795 when its remnants were partitioned by surrounding countries. Lithuania regained its independence following World War I but was annexed by the USSR in 1940 - an action never recognized by the US and many other countries. On 11 March 1990, Lithuania became the first of the Soviet republics to declare its independence, but Moscow did not recognize this proclamation until September of 1991 (following the abortive coup in Moscow). The last Russian troops withdrew in 1993. Lithuania subsequently restructured its economy for integration into Western European institutions; it joined both NATO and the EU in the spring of 2004.
==Economical characteristics==
* Currency: Lithuanian litas (ISO code: LTL)
* Central bank discount rate: 1.75% (February 2010)
* Commercial banks lending rate: 3.27% (February 2010)
* Stock of money (M1): $8.55 billion (January 2010)
* Quasi money (with M1 makes M2): $8.731 billion (31 December 2009 est.)
===Statistics===
Statistic / Year 	1999 	2000 	2001 	2002 	2003 	2004 	2005 	2006 	2007 	2008
GDP (million USD)World Bank. "Lithuania: GDP", from World Bank Data. Referenced 2010-09-29. 	10 917	11 434	12 159	14 164	18 609	22 552	25 962	30 089	38 894	47 341
Govt. debt (% of GDP)World Bank. "Lithuania: government debt", from World Bank Data. Referenced 2010-09-29. 	 	 	 	 	26.466	23.373	21.370	20.999	18.999	18.354
Govt. revenue (% of GDP)World Bank. "Lithuania: government revenue", from World Bank Data. Referenced 2010-09-29. 	 	25.937	25.371	27.939	27.528	27.756	28.530	28.704	28.843	28.726
Govt. expenses (% of GDP)World Bank. "Lithuania: government expenses", from World Bank Data. Referenced 2010-09-29.	 	26.877	26.392	28.370	27.535	28.528	28.138	28.420	29.294	31.443
Debt to revenue (years) 	 	 	 	 	0.961 	0.842 	0.749 	0.732 	0.659 	0.639
==References==
Note: statistical data was rounded. Different sources may use different methodologies for their estimates. Debt to revenue is calculated by dividing the two variables from their original ('unrounded') values. It represents how long it would a government take to repay its entire debt if it used its whole revenue for this purpose.
==External links==
* Lithuania on Wikipedia
* Central bank of Lithuania
* Country profile (pdf) from the Enterprise Studies page (part of the The World Bank Group)
* Studies from the Library of Congress (1986-1998)
* BBC country profile
Category:Countries