long with Lithuanian the only two surviving members of the Baltic branch. Indigenous minority languages are Latgalian and the nearly extinct Finno-Ugric Livonian language. In terms of geography, territory and population Latvia is the middle of three Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Latvia and Estonia share a long common history: historical Livonia, times of German (Teutonic Order), Polish-Lithuanian, Swedish, Russian, Nazi German and Soviet rule, 13th century Christianization and 16th century Protestant Reformation. Both countries are home to a large number of ethnic Russians (26.9% in Latvia[2] and 25.5% in Estonia[10]) of whom some are non-citizens. Latvia is historically predominantly Protestant, except for the region of Latgalia in the southeast which is historically predominantly Roman Catholic. Latvia is a unitary parliamentary republic and is divided into 118 administrative divisions of which 109 municipalities and 9 cities. There are five planning regions: Courland (Kurzeme), Latgalia (Latgale), Riga (Riga), Vidzeme and Zemgale. The Republic of Latvia was founded on November 18, 1918. It was occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union between 1940–1941 and 1945–1991 and by Nazi Germany between 1941–1945. The peaceful "Singing Revolution" between 1987 and 1991 and "Baltic Way" demonstration on August 23, 1989 led to the independence of the Baltic states. Latvia declared the restoration of its de facto independence on August 21, 1991. Latvia is a member of the United Nations, European Union, Council of Europe, NATO, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization, and is part of the Schengen Area. It was a member of the League of Nations (1921–1946) and the Baltic Free Trade Area (1994–2004). Latvia is also a member of the Council of the Baltic Sea States[11] and Nordic Investment Bank, and is together with Estonia and Lithuania involved in trilateral Baltic States cooperation[12] and Nordic-Baltic cooperation.[13][14] After economic stagnation in the early 1990s, Latvia posted Europe-leading GDP growth figures during 1998–2006. In the global financial crisis of 2008–2010 Latvia was the hardest hit of the European Union member states, with a GDP decline of 26.54% in that period.[15][16] Commentators noted signs of stabilisation in the Latvian economy by 2010, and the state of the economy continued to improve, as Latvia once again became one of the fastest growing economies of the EU in 2011.[17][18] The United Nations lists Latvia as a country with a Human Development Index (HDI) of "Very High".[7] Contents 1 Etymology 2 History 2.1 The Medieval period 2.2 The Reformation period 2.3 Latvia in the Russian Empire 2.4 Declaration of Independence 2.5 Latvia in World War II 2.6 Soviet era 2.7 Restoration of independence 3 Geography 3.1 Administrative divisions 3.2 Climate 3.3 Biodiversity 4 Politics 4.1 Foreign relations 4.2 Human rights 4.3 Military 5 Economy 5.1 Economic contraction 5.2 Infrastructure 6 Demographics 6.1 Ethnic groups 6.2 Language 6.3 Religion 6.4 Education 6.5 Health 7 Culture 7.1 Cuisine 7.2 Sports 8 See also 9 References 10 Further reading 11 External links Etymology The name Latvija is derived from the name of the ancient Latgallians, one of four Indo-European Baltic tribes, who along with Couronians, Selonians and Semigallians are the forebears of today's Latvians.[19] History Main article: History of Latvia See also: List of museums in Latvia Around the beginning of the third millennium BC (3000 BC), the proto-Baltic ancestors of the Latvian people settled on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea.[20] The Balts established trade routes to Rome and Byzantium, trading local amber for precious metals.[21] By 900 AD, four distinct Baltic tribes inhabited Latvia: Curonians, Latgalians, Selonians, Semigallians[citation needed] (in Latvian: kurši, latgali, seli and zemgali), as well as the Livonians (libieši) speaking a Finnic language. The Medieval period Main articles: Terra Mariana, Livonian Crusade, and Northern Crusades Terra Mariana, medieval Livonia Turaida Castle near Sigulda, built in 1214 under Albert of Riga In 1282, Riga became a member of the Hanseatic League Although the local people had had contact with the outside world for centuries, they were more fully integrated into European society in the 12th century.[22] The first missionaries, sent by the Pope, sailed up the Daugava River in the late 12th century, seeking converts.[23] The local people, however, did not convert to Christianity as readily as hoped.[23] German crusaders were sent into Latvia to convert the pagan population by force of arms.[24] In the beginning of the 13th century, large parts of today's Latvia were ruled by Germans.[23] Together with Southern Estonia, these conquered areas formed the crusader state that became known as Terra Mariana or Livonia. In 1282, Riga, and later the cities of Cesis, Limbaži, Koknese and Valmiera, were included in the Hanseatic League.[23] Riga became an important point of east-west trading[23] and formed close cultural contacts with Western Europe[citation needed]. The Reformation period Main articles: Swedish Livonia, Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, Duchy of Livonia, and Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Swedish Empire (1560–1815). Riga became the capital of Swedish Livonia and the largest city in the Swedish Empire. The 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries were a time of great change for the inhabitants of Latvia, including the reformation, the collapse of the Livonian state, and the time when the Latvian territory was divided up among foreign powers. After the Livonian War (1558–1583), Livonia (Latvia) fell under Polish and Lithuanian rule.[23] The southern part of Estonia and the northern part of Latvia were ceded to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and formed into the Ducatus Ultradunensis (Pardaugavas hercogiste). Gotthard Kettler, the last Master of the Order of Livonia, formed the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia[citation needed]. Though the duchy was a vassal state to Poland, it retained a considerable degree of autonomy and experienced a golden age in the 17th century. Latgalia, the easternmost region of Latvia, became a part of the Polish district of Inflanty. The 17th and early 18th centuries saw a struggle between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sweden, and Russia for supremacy in the eastern Baltic. After the Polish–Swedish War (1600–1611), northern Livonia (including Vidzeme) came under Swedish rule. Fighting continued sporadically between Sweden and Poland until the Truce of Altmark in 1629[citation needed]. In Latvia, the Swedish period is generally remembered as positive; serfdom was eased, a network of schools was established for the peasantry, and the power of the regional barons was diminished.[25][26] Several important cultural changes occurred during this time. Under Swedish and largely German rule, western Latvia adopted Lutheranism as its main religion. The ancient tribes of the Couronians, Semigallians, Selonians, Livs and northern Latgallians assimilated to form the Latvian people, speaking one Latvian language. Throughout all the centuries, however, no such thing as a Latvian state existed so the borders and definitions of who exactly fell within that group are largely subjective. Meanwhile, largely isolated from the rest of Latvia, southern Latgallians adopted Catholicism under Polish/Jesuit influence. The native dialect remained distinct, although it acquired many Polish and Russian loanwords.[27] Latvia in the Russian Empire The Capitulation of Estonia and Livonia in 1710 and the Treaty of Nystad, ending the Great Northern War in 1721, gave Vidzeme to Russia (it became part of the Riga Governorate)[citation needed]. The Latgale region remained part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as Inflanty Voivodeship until 1772, when it was incorporated into Russia. The Duchy of Courland and Semigallia became an autonomous Russian province (the Courland Governorate) in 1795, bringing all of what is now Latvia into the Russian Empire. All three Baltic provinces preserved local laws, the local official language and their own parliament, the Landtag[citation needed]. During the Great Northern War (1700–1721), the Baltic area was once again the scene of great devastation, with Peter the Great's scorched-earth policy, famine, and plague being responsible for catastrophic loss of human life: as much as 40% of the population in Latvian lands were killed.[28] In 1710, the plague reached Riga, where it was active until 1711 and claimed the lives of about half the population.[29] The promises Peter the Great made to the Baltic German nobility at the fall of Riga in 1710, confirmed by the Treaty of Nystad and known as "the Capitulations", largely reversed the Swedish reforms[citation needed]. The emancipation of the serfs took place in Courland in 1817 and in Vidzeme in 1819[citation needed]. In practice, however, the emancipation was actually advantageous to the landowners and nobility[citation needed], as it dispossessed peasants of their land without compensation, forcing them to return to work at the estates "of their own free will". During the 19th century, the social structure changed dramatically[citation needed]. A class of independent farmers established itself after reforms allowed the peasants to repurchase their land, but many landless peasants remained[citation needed]. There also developed a growing urban proletariat and an increasingly influential Latvian bourgeoisie. The Young Latvian (Latvian: Jaunlatvieši) movement laid the groundwork for nationalism from the middle of the century, many of its leaders looking to the Slavophiles for support against the prevailing German-dominated social order[citation needed]. The rise in use of the Latvian language in literature and society became known as the First National Awakening. Russification began in Latgale after the Polish led the January Uprising in 1863: this spread to the rest of what is now Latvia by the 1880s[citation needed]. The Young Latvians were largely eclipsed by the New Current, a broad leftist social and political movement, in the 1890s. Popular discontent exploded in the 1905 Russian Revolution, which took a nationalist character in the Baltic provinces. Declaration of Independence “Poland & The New Baltic States” map from a British atlas in 1920, showing still-undefined borders after the treaties of Brest and Versailles and before the Peace of Riga. Karlis Ulmanis World War I devastated the territory of what would become the state of Latvia, along with other western parts of the Russian Empire. Demands for self-determination were at first confined to autonomy, but the Russian 1917 Revolution, treaty with Germany at Brest-Litovsk, and allied armistice with Germany on November 11, 1918, created a power vacuum. The People's Council of Latvia proclaimed the independence of the new country in Riga on November 18, 1918, with Karlis Ulmanis becoming the head of the provisional government[citation needed]. The War of Independence that followed was part of a general chaotic period of civil and new border wars in Eastern Europe. By the spring of 1919, there were actually three governments — Ulmanis' government; the Soviet Latvian government led by Peteris Stucka, whose forces, supported by the Red Army, occupied almost all of the country; and the Baltic German government of the United Baltic Duchy, headed by Andrievs Niedra and supported by the Baltische Landeswehr and the German Freikorps unit Iron Division. Estonian and Latvian forces[citation needed] defeated the Germans at the Battle of Wenden in June 1919, and a massive attack by a predominantly German force — the West Russian Volunteer Army — under Pavel Bermondt-Avalov was repelled in November. Eastern Latvia was cleared of Red Army forces by Latvian and Polish troops in early 1920 (from the Polish perspective the Battle of Daugavpils was a part of the Polish-Soviet War)[citation needed]. A freely elected Constituent assembly convened on May 1, 1920, and adopted a liberal constitution, the Satversme, in February 1922.[30] The constitution was partly suspended by Karlis Ulmanis after his coup in 1934, but reaffirmed in 1990. Since then, it has been amended and is still in effect in Latvia today. With most of Latvia's industrial base evacuated to the interior of Russia in 1915, radical land reform was the central political question for the young state. In 1897, 61.2% of the rural population had been landless; by 1936, that percentage had been reduced to 18%.[31] By 1923, the extent of cultivated land surpassed the pre-war level. Innovation and rising productivity led to rapid growth of the economy, but it soon suffered from the effects of the Great Depression. Latvia showed signs of economic recovery and the electorate had steadily moved toward the centre during the parliamentary period[citation needed]. On May 15, 1934, Ulmanis staged a bloodless coup, establishing a nationalist dictatorship that lasted until 1940.[32] After 1934, Ulmanis established government corporations to buy up private firms with the aim of "Latvianising" the economy.[33] Latvia in World War II See also: Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940, Occupation of Latvia by Nazi Germany, The Holocaust in Latvia, Latvian partisans, and Latvian resistance movement "TWO WORLDS": Anti-Sovietism propaganda board, Latvia, Summer, 1941. Early in the morning of August 24, 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a 10-year non-aggression pact, called the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The pact contained a secret protocol, revealed only after Germany's defeat in 1945, according to which the states of Northern and Eastern Europe were divided into German and Soviet "spheres of influence".[34] In the North, Latvia, Finland and Estonia were assigned to the Soviet sphere.[34] Thereafter, Germany and the Soviet union invaded their respective portions of Poland. After the conclusion of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, most of the Baltic Germans left Latvia by agreement between Ulmanis' government and Nazi Germany under the Heim ins Reich program.[35] In total 50,000 Baltic Germans left by the deadline of December 1939, with 1,600 remaining to conclude business and 13,000 choosing to remain in Latvia.[35] Most of those who remained left for Germany in summer 1940, when a second resettlement[citation needed] scheme was agreed.[36] On 5 October 1939, Latvia was forced to accept a "mutual assistance" pact with the Soviet Union, granting the Soviets the right to station between 25,000 and 30,000 troops on Latvian territory.[37] After staging border incidents, on 16 June 1940 the government of the USSR handed the Latvian ambassador in Moscow a note, in which Latvia was accused of breaching the articles of the agreement of 5 October 1939, and demands were made for sending in additional Soviet troops and to change the government. The Latvian government capitulated in the face of overwhelming force. On 17 June Soviet troops invaded Latvian territory. In his address by radio, Karlis Ulmanis, announced: “Soviet forces are marching into our land this very morning. This is happening with the knowledge and consent of the government, which in turn stems from the amicable relations that exist between Latvia and the Soviet Union. It is, therefore, my wish that the residents of our country also show friendship towards the advancing military units ... The government has resigned. I shall remain in my place, you remain in yours”. No opposition was shown towards the Soviet forces; on the contrary, part of the population accepted the news of their arrival with enthusiasm, which was heavily exploited by Soviet propaganda. Observing them, the well known Russian lawyer and public figure of Latvia, Pyotr Yakobi, wrote: “Taken from the German model, the authoritarian beginning in our country has turned into a government of national bureaucracy, having satisfied a limited circle of citizens, who have adapted themselves to the state pie. Clearly, any hardship is not in vain. And so now the down-trodden have raised their voice and demand a return of their rights that have been trampled on ... “. Among those unhappy with the regime of Karlis Ulmanis were not only the national minorities but also many Latvians who were anxious about the deteriorating economic situation and who had no desire to end up under the rule of Nazi Germany. The mass killings of 2,749 Jews on the beach near the city of Liepaja, December 1941. State administrators were liquidated and replaced by Soviet cadres,[38] in which 34,250 Latvians were deported or killed.[39] Elections were held with single pro-Soviet candidates listed for many positions; the resulting people's assembly immediately requested admission into the USSR, which was granted by the Soviet Union.[38] Latvia, then a puppet government, was headed by Augusts Kirhenšteins.[40] Latvia was incorporated into the Soviet Union on August 5, 1940 as The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic. The Soviets dealt harshly with their opponents – prior to the German invasion, in the course of less than a year, at least 27,586 persons were arrested; most were deported for cooperation with the German army[citation needed], and about 945 persons were shot[citation needed]. While under German occupation, Latvia was administered as part of Reichskommissariat Ostland. Latvian paramilitary and Auxiliary Police units established by the occupation authority participated in the Holocaust as well.[32] More than 200,000 Latvian citizens died during World War II, including approximately 75,000 Latvian Jews murdered during the Nazi occupation.[32] Latvian soldiers fought on both sides of the conflict, including in the Latvian Legion of the Waffen-SS, most of them conscripted by the occupying Nazi and Soviet authorities[citation needed]. Soviet era Main articles: Occupation of Latvia by Soviet Union 1944–1945, Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, and Stalinism In 1944 when the Soviet military advances reached the area heavy fighting took place in Latvia between German and Soviet troops which ended with another German defeat. During the course of the war, both occupying forces conscripted Latvians into their armies, in this way increasing the loss of the nation's "live resources". In 1944, part of the Latvian territory once more came under Soviet control. The Soviets immediately began to reinstate the Soviet system. After the German surrender it became clear that Soviet forces were there to stay, and Latvian national partisans, soon to be joined by German collaborators, began their fight against another occupier – the Soviet Union.[41] Reconstruction of shack from Gulag in museum Anywhere from 120,000 to as many as 300,000 Latvians took refuge from the Soviet army by fleeing to Germany and Sweden.[42] Most sources count 200,000 to 250,000 refugees leaving Latvia, with perhaps as many as 80,000 to 100,000 of them recaptured by the Soviets or, during few months immediately after the end of war,[43] returned by the West.[44] The Soviets reoccupied the country in 1944–1945, and further deportations followed as the country was collectivised and Sovieticised.[32] On March 25, 1949, 43,000 rural residents ("kulaks") and Latvian patriots ("nationalists") were deported to Siberia in a sweeping Operation Priboi in all three Baltic states, which was carefully planned and approved in Moscow already on January 29, 1949.[45] Between 136,000 and 190,000 Latvians, depending on the sources, were imprisoned, repressed or deported to Soviet concentration camps (the Gulag) in the post war years, from 1945 to 1952.[46] Some managed to escape arrest and joined the partisans[citation needed]. In the post-war period, Latvia was driven to adopt Soviet farming methods. Rural