Latvia is a country on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, in the group of nations known as the Baltic states. It borders Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, Russia to the east and Belarus to the southeast, with a coastline along the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Riga. Latvia has been a member of the European Union and NATO since 2004 and uses the euro as its currency. Its capital, Riga, is the largest city in the Baltic states and contains a historic centre listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

Geography and Natural Environment

Location and Terrain

Latvia covers about 64,594 square kilometers, roughly comparable in size to Ireland or the U.S. state of West Virginia. Its landscape is an undulating plain, with flat lowlands alternating with low hills; there are no mountains, and elevations rarely exceed a few hundred meters. The country sits at the crossroads of maritime and continental climate influences, giving it warm, relatively short summers and cold, snowy winters shaped by its northern latitude and proximity to the Baltic Sea.

Forests, Rivers and Coast

Forest covers more than half of Latvia’s territory, according to the Latvian government’s own investment agency, a share nearly double the global average and among the highest in the European Union. The country’s rivers, wetlands and lake districts support extensive wildlife, and its Baltic coastline includes long stretches of sand dune and pine forest as well as the sheltered waters of the Gulf of Riga, on which the capital sits.

History: Independence, Occupation and Restoration

Statehood, War and Occupation (1918-1990)

Latvia declared independence in 1918, after centuries under Livonian, Polish-Lithuanian, Swedish and Russian imperial rule, and enjoyed roughly two decades of self-government before its sovereignty was extinguished by outside powers. In 1940, under the terms of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact’s secret protocol, the Soviet Union invaded and forcibly incorporated Latvia. The following year Nazi Germany occupied the country as part of the Ostland administrative region until 1944; tens of thousands of Latvian Jews were murdered during this period. When Soviet forces returned, they reimposed control that lasted until 1991, deporting tens of thousands of Latvians to Siberia and other parts of the Soviet interior. Soviet-era immigration and Russification policies also sharply altered the country’s demographic makeup, reducing the ethnic Latvian share of the population from roughly three-quarters before the war to about half by the 1980s.

Restoring Independence (1990-1991)

As Soviet control weakened in the late 1980s, Latvia’s parliament adopted a Declaration on the Restoration of Independence on May 4, 1990, opening a transitional period that was not yet internationally recognized. Full, internationally recognized independence followed on August 21, 1991, in the wake of the failed coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, with the Soviet Union itself formally recognizing Latvian statehood weeks later. Latvia has marked both dates as national holidays since, and it joined the United Nations, later the European Union and NATO, as part of a deliberate reorientation toward Western institutions.

Government and Economy

Latvia is a parliamentary republic. Its unicameral legislature, the Saeima, has 100 members and is the country’s supreme lawmaking authority: it elects the president, whose role is largely ceremonial, and approves the government led by a prime minister. The current constitution builds on the one adopted when the first Saeima was elected in 1922, restored after the Soviet period.

Latvia’s economy is a small, open, high-income economy integrated into EU markets. According to the European Union’s official country profile, GDP per capita stood at roughly 27,100 euros, below the EU average of about 38,100 euros, and Latvia accounts for approximately 0.2 percent of the EU’s total economic output. Forestry and wood products are a leading export sector, alongside services, transit and logistics tied to Latvia’s Baltic ports, food and beverage production, and a growing information-technology sector. Latvia has used the euro since January 2014 and belongs to the Schengen passport-free travel area.

Culture and People

Latvia’s population was estimated at about 1.85 million at the start of 2026 by the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, which has also recorded a long-running decline driven by low birth rates and net emigration; roughly seven in ten residents live in urban areas, and the Riga metropolitan area alone accounts for close to a third of the national population. Ethnic Latvians form the majority of the population, with a substantial Russian-speaking minority concentrated especially in Riga and the eastern Latgale region, a legacy of Soviet-era migration policy. Latvian, a Baltic language related closely only to Lithuanian, is the sole official language.

Song is central to Latvian cultural identity. The Latvian Song and Dance Celebration, held roughly every five years and bringing together tens of thousands of amateur singers and dancers, is recognized by UNESCO as an element of the world’s Intangible Cultural Heritage. Mass public singing also played a defining role in Latvia’s peaceful independence movement of the late 1980s, often called the “Singing Revolution.” Riga’s Old Town, meanwhile, preserves an unusually dense concentration of Art Nouveau architecture alongside its medieval core, a legacy of the city’s history as a major Hanseatic League trading center.

What Latvia Is Best Known For

Internationally, Latvia is best known for Riga’s Old Town, whose medieval streets, wooden 19th-century suburbs and what UNESCO calls “the finest concentration of Art Nouveau architecture in the world” earned it World Heritage status in 1997. Within Riga, the Freedom Monument, a 42.7-meter memorial unveiled in 1935 to Latvians who died fighting for independence, functions as the country’s primary national symbol of statehood and freedom, and it remains a focal point of public ceremony today. Latvia is also known, more specifically among Europeans, for its forests and nature tourism, its Baltic amber, and its song and dance festival tradition, as well as for its rapid post-Soviet transition into the EU, NATO and the eurozone.

Why Latvia Matters

Latvia’s significance extends beyond its small size and population. As a frontline EU and NATO member bordering Russia and Belarus, it occupies a strategically important position in European security debates, particularly since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine sharpened concerns across the Baltic states. Its history of occupation and peaceful, negotiated restoration of independence is frequently cited as a model of how a small nation can reclaim sovereignty through sustained civic mobilization rather than armed conflict. Culturally, Latvia’s preserved architectural heritage and living song-and-dance traditions offer a rare, still-practiced window onto both Hanseatic-era European trade networks and 20th-century Baltic identity and resistance.

Editorially reviewed by Specialty Digest Editorial TeamLast reviewed September 27, 2026Researched and drafted with AI assistanceReport an issue