What is special about Andorra?

Answer 1

Andorra has many special things.

- The Principality of Andorra is a Parliamentary democracy and Constitutional Diarchy. The chiefs of state are two co-princes, they are the President of France (curiously one republic) and the catholic Bishop of Urgell. These princes never live in Andorra.

- Andorra created its own currency, the "diner", but even the own government prefered to use the currencies of Spain and France. Since 2002 Andorra uses in facto the Euro without be member of Eurozone or the European Union.

- The gross domestic product at purchasing power parity of countries per capita is the tenth highest of the world and almost the same that the USA (CIA World Factbook 2010). The unemployment is among the lowest ones of the world. The taxes are very low and the prices are cheap.

- The 80% of andorran GDP comes from the tourism. 2,100,000 foreigners visit Andorra every year for enjoy the snow, the spas, the mountains and the shopping malls.

- Andorra has an official population of 84,082 (2009 census). Andorrans, who are ethnically Catalans, are a minority in their own country; Spanish, French, and Portuguese residents make up about 2/3 of the population. The 90% of population are Roman catholic.

- Andorra has an area of 467.63 km2 (180.55 sq mi). The country has 44 towns and villages divided in 7 counties. Andorra is situated in the Pyrenees mountains, between the spanish and french borders. Its capital, Andorra la Vella, is the highest capital city in Europe, being at an elevation of 1023 metres.

- The official and historic language is Catalan. Thus the culture, the traditions, the law or the law are also Catalan. Andorra is the only sovereign state with catalan as official language, but just about 0.5% of catalan speakers live in Andorra.

- Since the 13th century just the French Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte conquered Andorra.

- Andorran government can expulse immigrant population if they get a diseasese or lose their job.

- Andorra has three education systems. The andorran one in catalan language, the french one (payed by french government) and the spanish one (payed by spanish government).

- Andorra has 1 university, 1 hospital, 1 tv channel and 0 airports.