Lithuania travel guide — Lithuania tourism and travel information

Lithuania

The Republic of Lithuania (Lithuanian - Lietuva, Polish - Litwa, German - Litauen, French - Lituanie, Spanish - Lituania, Estonian - Leedu) is a republic in Northeastern Europe. One of the three Baltic States along the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with fellow Baltic State Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland to the south and the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia to the southwest.

Capital city - Vilnius (from 1323 till 1919 and from 1940 till now). From 1919 till 1940 Kaunas was capital city of Lithuania.

Lithuania geography

The largest and most populous of the Baltic states, Lithuania is a partly maritime country with about 100 km of sandy coastline, of which only 38 km face the open Baltic Sea. Lithuania's major warm-water port of Klaipėda lies at the narrow mouth of Kuršių Marios (Curonian Lagoon), a shallow lagoon extending south to Kaliningrad. The main river Nemunas and some of its tributaries are used for internal shipping.

The Lithuanian landscape is glacially flat, except for morainic hills in the western uplands and eastern highlands no higher than 300 m, with the highest point being the Juozapinės at 292 m. The terrain is marked by numerous lakes (e.g. Lake Vištytis) and swamps, and a mixed forest zone covers 30% of the country. The climate lies between maritime and continental, with wet, moderate winters and summers. According to some geographers, Lithuania's capital, Vilnius, lies a few kilometres south of the geographical centre of Europe.

Lithuania consists of historical and cultural regions:

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Lithuania".