In 1945, the Byelorussian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union. The republic was redeveloped in the post-war years. During World War II, military operations devastated Belarus, which lost about a quarter of its population and half of its economic resources. Much of the borders of Belarus took their modern shape in 1939, when some lands of the Second Polish Republic were reintegrated into it after the Soviet invasion of Poland, and were finalized after World War II. After the Polish-Soviet War, Belarus lost almost half of its territory to Poland. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution in 1917, different states arose competing for legitimacy amidst the Civil War, ultimately ending in the rise of the Byelorussian SSR, which became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union in 1922. Until the 20th century, different states at various times controlled the lands of modern-day Belarus, including Kievan Rus', the Principality of Polotsk, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Russian Empire. The country is administratively divided into seven regions.

Covering an area of 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) and with a population of 9.3 million, Belarus is the 13th-largest and the 20th-most populous country in 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. Retrieved 16 February 2013.īelarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, and historically Byelorussia, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. Archived from the original on 26 January 2012. ^ 'FAO's Information System on Water and Agriculture'.^ Constitution of the Republic of Belarus of 1994 Section 1, Article 17.

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