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ECUADOR is an Andean country situated in the northwest of the South American continent. It is bounded to the north by Colombia, east and south by Peru, and the west by the Pacific Ocean. It also includes the Galapagos Islands, located about 965 kilometers or 600 miles west of the mainland.
The DOMINICAN REPUBLIC forms the eastern portion of the island of Hispaniola in the West Indies. It covers two-thirds of the island, the smaller portion consisting of Haiti. The climate is semitropical and occasional hurricanes cause great destruction. The west of the country comprises four almost parallel mountain ranges, and between the two most northerly is the fertile Cibao Valley. The southeast is made up of fertile plains.
DOMINICA, discovered by Columbus, is the most northerly of the Windward Islands in the West Indies. It is situated between the islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe. The island is very rugged and, except for 225 square kilometers or 87 square miles of flat land, it consists of three inactive volcanoes, the highest of which is 1,447 meters or 4,747 feet.
DJIBOUTI is a republic situated in northeast Africa bounded almost entirely by Ethiopia except in the southeast. It shares a border with Somalia, and in the northwest, where it shares a border with Eritrea. Its coastline is on the Gulf of Aden. The small republic of Djibouti achieved independence in 1977, formerly having been a French overseas territory.
DENMARK, the most southerly and smallest of Scandinavia, is a constitutional monarchy in northern Europe. It comprises most of the Jutland or Jylland Peninsula, which protrudes northwards from the North German Plain, and more than 500 islands, 100 of which are inhabited. The main islands, sandwiched between the east coast of Jutland and the southwest of Sweden, are Fyn, Langeland, Olland, Falster, Mon, and Sjaelland. Bornholm, which lies about 128-kilometers or 80 miles east of Sjaelland off the southeastern tip of Sweden, also belongs to Denmark. The Faeroe (Foroyar) Islands in the Atlantic Ocean and Greenland off the coast of Canada are self-governing, dependent territories of Denmark. The North Sea lies to the west of the Jutland Peninsula. The North Sea arm between northwest Jutland and Norway is called the Skagerrak, while that between northeast Jutland and Sweden is named the Kattegat. The Baltic Sea lies to the east of the Danish islands, and the southernmost portion of the Jutland Peninsula is within Germany.
The CZECH REPUBLIC was newly constituted on 1 January 1993 with the dissolution of Czechoslovakia’s 74-year-old federal republic. The Czech Republic consists of two ancient former kingdoms and part of a third: Bohemia in the center and west, Moravia in the east, and Silesia in the northeast of the republic. It is a landlocked country at the heart of central Europe, bounded by Slovakia (the Slovak Republic), Germany, Poland, and Austria. Natural boundaries are formed by the Sudeten Mountains in the north, the Erzgebirge or Ore Mountains to the northwest, and the Bohemian Forest in the southwest. Lying east of the country’s center, the Moravian Highlands give way to lower-lying, rolling plains. There are numerous rivers in the country and some freshwater lakes.
CYPRUS is an island republic that lies in the eastern Mediterranean about 85 kilometers or 53 miles south of Turkey. It has been unofficially partitioned since 1974 – the northeastern portion forming the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
The island’s shape somewhat resembles a saucepan with the “handle” formed by the long, narrow Karpas Peninsula pointing northeastwards towards Turkey. A range of mountains extends along much of the northern coast with a still higher range, the Troodos Mountains, in the center and southwest. Between the mountains lies the extensive Messoria Plain. The highest point is Mount Olympus (1,951 meters or 6,401 feet) in the southwest.
CROATIA, a republic of former Yugoslavia, made a unilateral declaration of independence on 25 June 1991. Sovereignty was not formally recognised by the international community until early in 1992. Located in southeast Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Adriatic Sea, to the north by Slovenia and Hungary, to the east by Yugoslavia, and the south Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Côte d’Ivoire, a former French colony in West Africa, is located on the Gulf of Guinea, with Ghana to the east and Liberia and Guinea to the west. A roughly square-shaped country, the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire comprises a once thickly forested, undulating plain in the south and west, rising to mountainous territory in the northwestern border regions.