Latvia Country Info - Europe

Description and Basic Information

Latvia with its capital Riga is located in Europe (Eastern Europe, bordering the Baltic Sea). It covers some 64,590 square kilometres (slightly larger than West Virginia) with 2,245,000 citizens. Latvian, Russian and Lithuanian are languages spoken by the majority in Latvia (consider regional differences). Lithuania, Estonia, Belarus and Russia are bordering countries.

Latvia is a European state which is situated on the coast of Baltic Sea. One of the three Baltic states, Latvia is bordered by Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, Russia to the east, Belarus on the south east, and the Baltic Sea on the west. The most famous travel spot is the capital Riga, a World Heritage Site. There are also many other great places to see, both urban and rural, such as Liepaja with its unique former secret military town of Karosta and a magnificent beach. Kuldiga with Europe`s widest waterfall and Cesis with its medieval castle ruins are also interesting. Tourists can also enjoy the wild beauty of Latvia's unspoilt sea coast, which is 500 km long and consists mainly of white, soft sandy beaches. Forests, which cover approximately a half of Latvia's territory, offer many nature trails and nature parks.There are a lot of possibilities to practice winter sports - snowboarding, cross country skiing, downhill skiing etc.

Pictures from Capital (Riga)

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.

About Latvia

The terrain offers low plain. The average density of population is about 34 per km². The climate in Latvia can be described as maritime with wet, moderate winters. Possible natural disasters include NA.

To reach someone in Latvia dial +371 prior to a number. There are 644,000 installed telephones. And there are 2,243,000 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 900, 1800 Mhz. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".lv". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 220V - 50Hz. The following list are the 120 regions/states in Latvia we know off.

Demographic Statistics

In the year 2010, the total Latvian population shrinked at a rate of -0.6% (or by 13,352 citizens). With 30,164 deaths and 21,958 babies born, the natural increase rate lies at -0.37%. -5,146 persons more in total emmigrated from the country than immigrated.

An overview of age distribution in Latvia: Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.