Size: Approximately 33,700 square kilometers.
Topography: Gently rolling hilly plain in north; thick deciduous forests in center; numerous ravines and gullies in steppe zone in south. Highest point 430 meters.
Climate: Moderately continental. Average annual precipitation ranges from 600 millimeters in north to 400 millimeters in south.
Population: 4,473,033 (July 1994 estimate); average annual growth rate 0.38 percent (1994 estimate).
Ethnic Groups: According to 1989 census, 64.5 percent Romanian, 13.8 percent Ukrainian, 13.0 percent Russian, 3.5 percent Gagauz, 2.0 percent Bulgarian, 1.5 percent Jewish, and 1.7 other, including Belarusian, Polish, Roma (Gypsy), and German.
Languages: Moldovan (a dialect of Romanian) official language; Russian retained as language of interethnic communication; areas of non-Romanian ethnic majority may also use local language as means of communication.
Religion: About 98.5 percent Eastern Orthodox (1991); also, Uniate, Jewish, Armenian Apostolic, Seventh-Day Adventist, Baptist, Pentecostal, and Molokan.
Education and Literacy: Mandatory School attendance, ten years; literacy, 96 percent (1992). Approximately half of students study in Romanian language and half in Russian language.
Health: Health care provided by state, mostly free of charge. Infant mortality rate 30.3 per 1,000 live births (1994). Life expectancy (1994) for males sixty-five years and for females seventy-two years. Modern medical equipment and facilities in short supply. In 1990 about 129 hospital beds and forty doctors per 10,000 inhabitants.
Data as of June 1995