Map Moldova

Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova (Republica Moldova) is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east and south. The country is a parliamentary democracy with a president as its head of state and a prime minister as its head of government. The state language is called officially Moldovan, as it is mentioned in the Constitution, but in the Declaration of Independence it was called Romanian. Like in all CIS states, Russian is also widely spoken and is the native language for 11% of the population, and according to the National Strategy Moldo-Russian bilinguism is the reality to be implemented. The capital and largest city of Moldova is Chişinău.
In the Middle Ages, most of the present territory of Moldova was part of the Principality of Moldavia, and in 1812 it became part of the Russian Empire, under the name of Bessarabia. Upon the dissolution of the Russian Empire in 1917-1918, Bessarabia joined Romania. In 1940, Bessarabia was occupied by the Soviet Union, and after changing hands in 1941 and 1944 during World War II, it was split between the Ukrainian SSR and the newly-created Moldavian SSR. Moldova declared its independence from the USSR on August 27, 1991. Despite signing international obligations to withdraw, Russian military forces have remained on Moldovan territory; since 1993 they have been stationed in the breakaway territory of Transnistria against the will of the Moldovan Government.
Moldova is a member state of the United Nations, WTO, OSCE, GUAM, CIS, BSEC and other international organizations. Moldova currently aspires to join the European Union and is implementing its first three-year Action Plan within the framework of the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) of the EU.