LatviaLatvija

Baltic tribes (Curonians, Semigallians, Latgalians, Selonians) and the Finnic Livonians lived here when German crusaders arrived. Bishop Albert founded Riga in 1201 and the Livonian Order conquered the land over the following century. Riga became a Hanseatic port and German remained the language of power for 700 years, while Latvians were peasants on German-owned estates.

Poland-Lithuania, Sweden and Russia fought over the territory. The Duchy of Courland in the west, a Polish vassal, even held colonies in Tobago and Gambia in the 17th century. By 1795 all of today's Latvia belonged to the Russian Empire, and Riga grew into one of its largest industrial ports, with a boom that produced the Art Nouveau district around 1900.

Latvia declared independence on 18 November 1918 and fought until 1920 to secure it. In 1940 the Soviet Union occupied and annexed it; the Nazi occupation of 1941–44 brought the murder of almost all of Latvia's Jews, including at Rumbula forest; the Soviets returned in 1944. Mass deportations in 1941 and 1949 and large-scale migration from other Soviet republics reduced Latvians to barely half the population by 1989.

The Awakening of the late 1980s, the Baltic Way of 1989 and the barricades in Riga's streets in January 1991 led to restored independence in August 1991. Latvia joined NATO and the EU in 2004 and the euro in 2014. A severe 2008–10 crisis and emigration cut the population sharply.

Old Riga is a tight knot of medieval streets around the Dome Cathedral, St Peter's Church and the rebuilt House of the Blackheads, destroyed in 1941 and reconstructed in the 1990s. Merchants' warehouses, guild halls and the Three Brothers houses show seven centuries of trade.

Riga's great expansion around 1900 produced one of the densest collections of Art Nouveau buildings anywhere: roughly a third of the centre. Along Alberta and Elizabetes streets, facades by Mikhail Eisenstein carry screaming faces, sphinxes and peacocks, while Latvian architects such as Eižens Laube developed a national romantic style with local stone and folk motifs.

The 20th century added the Freedom Monument (1935), the Stalinist Academy of Sciences tower, and the Central Market, housed in five former German Zeppelin hangars. The historic centre has been on the UNESCO list since 1997.

Latvian identity rests on the dainas, short four-line folk songs collected in the late 19th century by Krišjānis Barons into a cabinet of more than 200,000 slips of paper. They cover work, love, death and the sun's year, and quotes from them still appear on buildings and in speeches.

The Song and Dance Festival, begun in 1873, gathers tens of thousands of choir singers and dancers every five years; the most recent was in 2023, the next in 2028. As in Estonia, it became a vehicle of resistance in Soviet times.

Midsummer (Jāņi) keeps a strongly pre-Christian feel: people weave oak and flower crowns, make caraway cheese, drink beer, sing Līgo songs and keep bonfires burning through the shortest night. Patterned mittens and belts carry symbols, such as the sun sign and Auseklis star, that many families still read as protective.

Vidzeme, north-east of Riga, holds the Gauja valley with sandstone cliffs, Turaida and Cēsis castles and most of the country's hills. Kurzeme in the west (historic Courland) has the long open coast, fishing villages of the Livonians, Liepāja's naval port and Kuldīga, whose old town and wide waterfall joined the UNESCO list in 2023.

Zemgale to the south is flat farmland with the ducal palaces of Rundāle and Jelgava, both designed by Rastrelli, architect of St Petersburg's Winter Palace. Latgale in the east is Catholic, lake-studded and poorer, with its own written language (Latgalian), a Russian-speaking city in Daugavpils and the pilgrimage basilica at Aglona.

These differences are more than scenery: Lutheran and Catholic, Latvian- and Russian-speaking, richer west and poorer east still shape voting patterns and attitudes.

Latvian food is farm cooking: rye bread, grey peas with bacon, potatoes, pork, smoked fish, sour cream and kefir. Caraway flavours cheese, bread and even kvass. Sklandrausis, a rye tart with carrot and potato, has EU protected status.

The Central Market in Riga is the best introduction: smoked eel and flounder, pickles by the barrel, honey, forest berries and home-made cheeses. Lido, a chain of rustic self-service restaurants, is where Latvians and visitors eat cheaply.

Riga Black Balsam, a herbal bitter first made by a pharmacist in 1752, is the national drink, taken in coffee or with blackcurrant juice. Beer has a strong unfiltered farmhouse tradition, and a young craft scene has grown since the 2010s.

About a quarter of the population is ethnically Russian and around a third speaks Russian at home. After 1991 citizenship went to pre-1940 citizens and their descendants; others received non-citizen passports, and around 170,000 people still hold them (check). Latvian is the only state language, and schools are completing a move to Latvian-only teaching.

Since 2022 Latvia has required Russian citizens living there to pass a language test, removed Soviet monuments including the Victory Monument in Riga, and closed its border crossings to most Russian traffic. The Belarus border has seen migrant pushes and a fence; the Pāternieki crossing was suspended in July 2026.

Emigration after the 2008 crisis took hundreds of thousands to Ireland, the UK and Scandinavia. Riga remains the economic centre, with IT, logistics and airBaltic, while rural areas age and shrink.