Luxembourg is the only Grand Duchy in the world. After the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, the Congress of Vienna made Luxembourg the Grand Duchy under the direction of a duke or duchess. When Germany occupied the duchy during World War II, the ruling dynasty of Luxembourg refused to cooperate with the German government and went into exile.
The country has the highest percentage of mobile phones per capita in Europe. This figure is 151.7 phones per 100 people. Luxembourg is in third place in The European Union after Finland and Denmark in terms of business efficiency.
Luxembourg is famous for its banking services and wines. Currently, more than 150 banks from 25 countries of the world operate in Luxembourg and the headquarters of the European Investment Bank is located there. Luxembourg is famous for its wines as well and often takes the first places in wine ratings. In Luxembourg there is the restaurant, which fell into the Guinness Book of Records, thanks to the longest wine list consisting of 1746 different wines.
An underground network of tunnels 23 kilometers is cut in a rock under the city of Luxembourg - these are the Bock Casemates. Once upon a time a castle towered over this rock, around which Luxembourg arose, but it was destroyed in the 19th century by the London Treaty and Casemates are all that remain of it. During the Second World War, the Casemates were used as a bomb shelter and covered 30-35 thousand people. Today, many of the old houses of Luxmeburg still have underground passages to the Bock Casemates.
In Luxembourg, as in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and some American states, euthanasia is legal. In 2008, the Grand Duke refused to sign a bill on the legalization, which led to constitutional reform. Now the role of the monarch is limited to ceremonial functions. It is important to note that the average life expectancy is 77.6 years for men and 82.7 years for women.
In 2015, gay marriage was approved in Luxembourg. Xavier Bettel, Prime Minister of Luxembourg, became the first European political leader to marry a member of his gender.
Any person who often comes to Europe is familiar with the concept of the Schengen Area and the Schengen Visa. But few people know that the agreement, which opened up freedom of movement across the continent, was signed in the small village of Schengen located in Luxembourg. This village was chosen as the place for signing the agreement for a rather amusing reason. By 1985, when the Schengen Zone was created, the freedom of movement already existed between the Benelux countries. When France and Germany decided to join them on the abolition of internal border control, they began to look for a point on the map where the borders of all these three entities converge. Schengen turned out to be such a point. The village was so small that there was not even a decent hall in it where delegations from all five countries could be accommodated. They had to bring the tourist ship "Princess Marie-Astrid" from the capital, on board of which the agreement was signed.
Luxembourg is approximately the same size as Moscow or American state of Rhode Island. Luxembourg is 7th on the list of the smallest countries in Europe. The name "Luxembourg" comes from the Old High German word which means “small town”.
The population of Luxembourg is approximately 600 thousand people. This is slightly less than the population of Oklahoma's state capital, Oklahoma City, and approximately equal to the population of Khabarovsk.
Luxembourg, together with Belgium and the Netherlands, is part of the Benelux, a union of monarchies in Western Europe.
Three languages are recognized as official in Luxembourg: French, German and Luxembourgish, which belongs to the group of West Germanic languages with written language based on the Latin alphabet.
Country’s largest cities are: Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Dudelange and Differdange.
The population of Luxembourg, the capital, is approximately 115 thousand people, which is comparable to the population of the resort town of Essentuki in the Stavropol Territory.
In 2011, Luxembourg took first place in the ranking of the safest cities in the world.
