Luxembourg, a landlocked Western European country, has heavily forested hills in the north and open, rolling countryside in the south. It became a member of a customs union in 1948 that evolved into today's European Union. Although small in size, Luxembourg's central location, political stability, and multilingual population, along with tax incentives, have proved advantageous to it as a financial center. Foreign investment in light manufacturing and services has offset the decline in steel, once the nation's major industry.