Latvia
The Baltic middle land of forests, rivers, and Art Nouveau
Latvia is the central Baltic state, a low country of dense forest and slow rivers wrapped around the broad Gulf of Riga. Home to about 1.86 million people, more than a third of them in the elegant capital, Riga, it occupies a historic crossroads where Baltic, German, Russian, and Scandinavian influences have long mingled. Riga boasts one of Europe's finest collections of Art Nouveau architecture, and the country sustains a powerful choral tradition expressed in mass song festivals that helped it sing its way out of Soviet rule.
Glaciation left Latvia flat and forested, with woodland covering more than half the land and the highest hill, Gaizinkalns, reaching only 312 meters. The Daugava River, flowing from Russia and Belarus to the Baltic at Riga, has long been the country's main artery, while a long sandy coast of dunes and pine fringes the sea. The climate is humid continental, with cold winters and mild summers. Forestry and wood processing, transit trade through the port of Riga, and a growing tech and services sector form the backbone of the economy.
Latvians speak a Baltic language, one of only two surviving (with Lithuanian) from an ancient Indo-European branch. After centuries under the Livonian and Teutonic orders, Sweden, Poland, and the Russian Empire, Latvia declared independence in 1918, then endured Soviet and Nazi occupation before being annexed by the USSR. It restored independence in 1991 amid the Baltic chain of protest known as the Baltic Way. Since joining the EU and NATO in 2004 and the eurozone in 2014, Latvia has anchored itself firmly in the West while preserving a deep folk heritage of song, amber, and midsummer ritual.