Python organizes code using modules and packages.
Generally, modules correspond to files and packages correspond to folders.
You access code and data from different modules and packages by using import statements.
http://docs.python.org/tutorial/modules.html
A module is any python source file on your python library path. A file named russia.py will correspond to a module named russia, and you would write import russia to import the russia module into your current scope.
Everything declared in the top level of russia.py would be accessible as an attribute of the module like russia.COASTLINE_LENGTH
A package is used for the organization of modules. Any folder on your python path that contains a file name __init__.py is a package, and can contain modules or more packages (sub-folders).
Packages and their sub-packages are dot-separated in Python code, so if we moved russia.py into a folder named "country", our code would then become:
import country.russia
import country.liechtenstein
assert country.russia.SIZE > country.liechtenstein.SIZE
When you have a number of nested sub packages, it's often inconvenient to use names like country.russia.industry.EXPORTS. Instead you can import certain parts of Russia's industry directly into your current scope:
from country.russia.industry import EXPORTS
assert 'spices' in EXPORTS
from country.russia import SIZE as size_of_russia
Finally, if you have many nested packages, it's also nice to not have to use the full names in your import statement. For example, we could place the following in country/russia/__init__.py:
from .industry import EXPORTS