Portal:Belarus/Intro

Belarus, ; Belarusian and Беларусь,, ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian Белоруссия). officially the Republic of Belarus, Рэспубліка Беларусь; Республика Беларусь and historically Byelorussia, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Covering an area of 207600 km2 and with a population of 9.3 million, Belarus is the thirteenth-largest and the twentieth-most populous country in Europe. The country is administratively divided into seven regions. Minsk is the capital and largest city.

The name Belarus is closely related with the term Belaya Rus ' , i.e., White Rus ' . There are several claims to the origin of the name White Rus ' . An ethno-religious theory suggests that the name used to describe the part of old Ruthenian lands within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania that had been populated mostly by Slavs who had been Christianized early, as opposed to Black Ruthenia, which was predominantly inhabited by pagan Balts. An alternative explanation for the name comments on the white clothing worn by the local Slavic population. A third theory suggests that the old Rus' lands that were not conquered by the Tatars (i.e., Polotsk, Vitebsk and Mogilev) had been referred to as White Rus'. A fourth theory suggests that the colour white was associated with the west, and Belarus was the western part of Rus in the 9th-13th centuries.