Everything you need to know about Latvia
Explore Latvia from Rigaโs spires and Art Nouveau streets to Baltic ports, the Gauja valley and Latgaleโs lakes. Place sixteen cities and towns, discover sixteen sights, read ten illustrated topics and begin Latvian.
Read it, then make it stick
Baltic shores, river valleys and eastern lakes
Latvia occupies the middle of the three Baltic states, with Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, Russia to the east and Belarus to the southeast. Its western shore faces the Baltic Sea; the Gulf of Riga cuts into the northern coast. Riga, the capital and largest city, stands near the mouth of the Daugava. Liepฤja and Ventspils are western seaports, while Daugavpils lies inland on the Daugava in the southeast.
Know the shape of the country
Place sixteen cities and towns in two learning groups: Riga, south and west; and north and east. These groups are not administrative or historical-land boundaries. Pins use curated settlement centres on a generalised Natural Earth country outline.
Places worth visiting
Essential ยท Historic centre
Riga historic centre
Medieval streets and churches form part of Rigaโs World Heritage historic centre.
Explore sixteen heritage and landscape sights, from Rigaโs streets and Rundฤleโs palace to sandstone valleys, raised bogs and Latgaleโs lakes. Essential and Worth a detour are learning priorities. Landscape pins identify representative places, not guaranteed entrances or trailheads. Check official opening information and protected-area rules. Select a pin to read about a place, then play the map and find them all.
Take Latvian with you
Greetings and politeness
Hello, please, thank you, sorry: the ten openers everything else builds on.
Keep going one country deeper
When you have had your fill of Latvia, the countries marked guide have a page like this one, and every other has maps of its own.
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