Country Facts - Luxembourg

The People

Nationality Luxembourger(s) Ethnic Composition
Celtic (with French and German blend)
Portuguese
Italian
Slavs (from Montenegro, Albania, and Kosovo)
European (guest and worker residents) Religious Composition

Roman Catholic	97%
Protestant and Jewish	3%

Note: 1979 legislation forbids the collection of religious statisticsss

Languages Spoken

Luxembourgish (national language), German (administrative language), French (administrative language)

Education and Literacy

Adult literacy is 100 percent, and school attendance is compulsory between ages 6 and 15.

Labor Force

Total: 262,300 (of whom 87,400 are foreign cross-border workers primarily from France, Belgium, and Germany) (2000)

By occupation:

Services	90.1%
Industry	8%
Agriculture	1.9%

Geography

Land Mass Total

998 sq mi (2,586 sq km)

Land

998 sq mi (2,586 sq km)

Land Boundaries

Total: 223 mi (359 km)
Border countries: Belgium 91 mi (148 km), France 45 mi (73 km), Germany 85 mi (138 km)

Coastline

Landlocked

Maritime claim

None

Climate/Weather

Moderated continental with mild winters and cool summers.

Terrain

Gently rolling uplands with broad, shallow valleys; uplands to slightly mountainous in the north; steep slope down to Moselle floodplain in the southeast.

Elevation extremes

Lowest: Moselle River 436 ft (133 m)
Highest: Burgplatz1,833 ft (559 m)

Natural Resources

Iron ore (no longer exploited), arable land.

Land use

Arable land	25%
Permanent crops	%
Other (includes Belgium)	75%

(1998)

Environment - current issues

Air and water pollution in urban areas, soil pollution of farmland

Geography Note

Landlocked; the only Grand Duchy in the world, it is the smallest of the European Union member states

Demographics

Population

448,569 (July 2002)

Age structure

0-14 years:	18.9%	Male: 43,634	Female: 41,164
15-64 years:	67%	Male: 151,364	Female: 149,156
65 years and over:	14.1%	Male: 25,486	Female: 37,765

(2002)

Growth Rate

1.25% (2002)

Life Expectancy

77.48 years (2002)
Female: 80.97 years
Male: 74.2 years

GDP Per Capita

Purchasing power parity
US$43,400 (2001)

Infant Mortality

4.71 deaths/1,000 live births (2002)

Sex ratio

At birth:	1.07 male(s)/female
Under 15 years:	1.06 male(s)/female
15-64 years:	1.01 male(s)/female
65 years and over:	0.67 male(s)/female
Total population:	0.97 male(s)/female

(2002)

Net migration rate

9.26 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2002)

Economy & Trade

This stable, high-income economy features solid growth, low inflation, and low unemployment. The industrial sector, initially dominated by steel, has become increasingly diversified to include chemicals, rubber, and other products. Growth in the financial sector has more than compensated for the decline in steel. Services, especially banking, account for a substantial proportion of the economy. Agriculture is based on small family-owned farms. The economy depends on foreign and trans-border workers for 30 percent of its labor force. Although Luxembourg, like all E.U. members, has suffered from the global economic slump, the country has, considering its size, maintained a fairly robust growth rate. Posting 0.5-percent growth in 2002, expectations for 2003 are 1.5 percent and a very optimistic 4 percent for 2004. On 1 January 2002, Luxembourg - together with 11 of its E.U. partners - began to replace its circulating national currency with the euro.

Unemployment

2.4% (2001)

Inflation Rate

2.4% (2001)

Industries

Banking, iron and steel, food processing, chemicals, metal products, engineering, tires, glass, aluminum.

Exports

US$7.85 billion (f.o.b., 2000)

Imports

US$10.25 billion (c.i.f., 2000)

Total Trade

Purchasing power parity
GDP US$19.2 billion (2001)

Top Export Partners

EU 85% (Germany 24%, France 21%, Belgium 13%), US 4% (2000)

Top Import Partners

EU 88% (Belgium 37%, Germany 25%, France 13%), US 4% (2000)

Top Exports

machinery and equipment, steel products, chemicals, rubber products, glass

Top Imports

Minerals, metals, foodstuffs, quality consumer goods.

Economic aid

Donor: ODA US$160 million (1999)

Fiscal Year:

Calendar year

Business Workweek

	Monday - Friday	Saturday - Sunday
Offices	8:30a.m. to noon and 2p.m. to 6p.m.	Closed
Retail	Monday 2p.m. to 6p.m. Tuesday to Friday 9a.m. to noon and 2p.m. to 6p.m.	Saturday 9a.m. to noon, and 2p.m. to 6p.m.
Banks	9a.m. to noon, and 1:30p.m. to 4:30p.m.; until 5 p.m. on Thursdays, but banks could vary greatly.	Closed
Government	9a.m. to 2:30p.m.	Closed

Holidays

Official Holidays

Holidays	2003	2004	2005
New Year's Day	January 1	January 1	January 1
Carnival¹	March 3	February 23	February
Easter²	April 20	April 11	March 27
Easter Monday	April 21	April 12	March 28
May Day	May 1	May1	May 1
Ascension³	May 29	May 20	May 6
Whit Sunday (Pentecost)*¹	June 8	May 30	May 15
Whit Monday	June 9	May 31	May 16
Corpus Christi*²	June 19	June 10	May 26
National Day (Sovereign's Birthday)	June 23	June 23	June 23
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary	August 15	August 15	August 15
Luxembourg City Kermesse (City of Luxembourg only)	September 1	September 1	September 1
All Saints' Day	November 1	November 1	November 1
Christmas Day*³	December 25	December 25	December 25
St. Stephen's Day	December 26	December 26	December 26
New Year's Eve	December 31	December 31	December 31

¹	Carnival takes place one week before the beginning of Lent. Mainly a Catholic observance.
²	Easter, a Christian holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is the first Sunday after the full moon and the vernal equinox (fixed in the Gregorian calendar at March 21), and often observed with Good Friday and Easter Monday. In the West, Easter is predicted using the Gregorian calendar, while Eastern Orthodox Christians use the much older Julian calendar, and celebrate 13 days later.
³	The feast of Ascension takes place 40 days after Easter in both the Christian and Orthodox faiths and celebrates the ascent of Christ into Heaven.
*¹	The Christian feast of Pentecost, Whit Sunday or Whit Monday takes place 50 days after Easter, in observation of the day God came to the disciples through the Holy Ghost.
*²	Western Catholic feast commemorating the Eucharist, takes place 60 days after Easter, and is typically the time when believers take their first communion.
*³	Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. In A.D.320, Pope Julius I fixed the date at December 25 based on the Gregorian calendar. The Orthodox church calculates Christmas using the Julian calendar and celebrates 13 days later on January 7.

Country information used by permission of World Trade Press