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With coastlines on both the Baltic and North Seas, Germany is bordered by nine countries. Plains and rolling hills in the north give way to more mountainous terrain in the south. Europe's foremost industrial power, and its most populous country apart from Russia, Germany is the world's second-biggest exporter. Unified in the 1870s, it was divided after the defeat of the Nazi regime in 1945. The communist-ruled east was part of the Soviet bloc until the collapse of the East German regime in 1989, which paved the way for reunification in 1990. Tensions created by wealth differences between east and west were then exacerbated by record levels of unemployment. The government committed itself to European union and adopted the single currency, the euro, even though the stable deutsche mark had been a symbol of German pride.