About Lithuania
There is a big data collection about Lithuania still existing, just try your search machine under „Lithuania“.
Therefore you will find here only some basic data and curiosities
Geography and population:
Lithuania is one of the states bordering the Baltic Sea. Geographically seen the country is exactly located in the heart of Europe. With about 65.300 square kilometres Lithuania is the biggest of the three Baltic Countries. The length of the border is 1846 km. Lithuania is bordering Latvia in the north, Belorussia in the east, Poland in the southwest, the oblast Kaliningrad in the west. Lithuanias coastline is 99 km. Administratively Lithuania is divided into 10 districts. There are 92 cities with a population above 10.000 inhabitants
The population is about 3,4 million. The average density is 52 inhabitants per sq km.
The composition of the population is as follows:
- Lithuanians 80 %
- Russians 8,9 %
- Poles 7,3 %
- Belorussians 1,7 %
- Ukrainians 0,9 %
- Jews 0,4 %
- Others 0,8 %
Approximately 2,9 millions of Lithuanians live outside their homeland, about 1 million of Lithuanian origin live in the USA, Canada, South America and other countries.
Of all the Lithuanians 65,6 % live in towns.
Vilnius, the capital, has about 550.000 inhabitants,
Kaunas about 418.000,
Klaipeda about 200.000.
But in reality the third biggest LithuanianCity is meanwhile London, where about 230.000 Lithuanians are said to live and work.
History
For the first time Lithuania was mentioned in 1009 in the Quedlinburg historics. Lithuania as a state exists since the early XIII century. Mindaugas (1236-63) became the first only king of Lithuania at 1253. From the end of the XIV century up to the beginning of the XV century Lithuania was one of the most powerful and biggest states in Europe. It was Grand Duke Gediminas(1316-41) who conquered nearly the whole Belorusssian area down to the approaches of the Black Sea.
There is a tale: Grand Duke Gediminas inspected Lithuania. He took a white horse. Three years later he returned with a black horse. Asked why, he answered that his white horse was drinking water from the Black Sea!
Lithuania was never conquered by the Teutonic Knights who were defeated in the battle of Tannenberg in 1410 finally. The treaty of the Melno lake in 1420 sanctioned the border with Prussia for 500 years. After more than 200 years of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Lithuania was incorporated in 1795 into Russia. After the First World War Lithuania proclaimed independence and restoration of statehood on 16 February 1918. Only 22 Years were allowed for the independent state of Lithuania. In 1940 the Soviet Union occupied the country, followed by Germany in 1941 and again the Soviet Union in 1945. Lithuania became part of the Soviet Union until the 11 of March 1990. Lithuania proclaimed independence. A new era began. Since 29 March 2004 Lithuania entered NATO, on 1 of May 2004 Lithuania became member of the European Union.
Political and national structure
The state of Lithuania is an independent democratic republic. The Power of state is executed by the seimas, the Lithuania parliament, the president of the republic, government and court. The seimas consists of the representatives of the Nation. There are 137 members of the seimas. Powers are limited according to the constitution, adopted by a referendum in 1992. The territory of the state is one and not divisible. The official language is Lithuanian.
The colours of the flag are gold, green and red.
Climate
Climate is transitional between maritime and continental. The annual average temperature is
about 6 C. In January the average temperature is – 4,8C, and in July 17,2 C. The middle annual precipitation varies from 540 mm up to 930 mm.
Language
Linguists love Lithuanian, because its neighbourhood to the ancient Indian Sanskrit. Lithuanian is an indo- European language and belongs to the Baltic language group, like the Latvian language as well as the Curonian and Prussian, which already died.
Try to pronounce the longest existing Lithuanian word:
Nebeprisikiskiakopusteliaudavome !
Lithuania cuisine
Lithuanian food has been influenced by a lot of different surrounding cultures. Specialities like smoked sausages, various cheeses, cepeliniai ( meat cooked inside a ball of potato dough, served with a sour cream sauce), and vedarai (cooked potatoes and sausage stuffed into pig intestines) as well as karka (pickled knuckle of pork) are a must to try.