🇱🇻 Latvia

Around 3000 BC Proto-Baltic peoples established themselves on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. They later built trade routes to Rome and Byzantium, exchanging local amber for precious metals, giving the region an early commercial link to the Mediterranean world.

The name 'Latvia' originates from the Latgalians, one of four eastern Baltic tribes that formed the ethnic core of the Latvian people between roughly the 8th and 12th centuries AD. By 900 the Curonians, Latgalians, Selonians and Semigallians inhabited what is now Latvia, alongside the Finnic-speaking Livonians, and these tribal territories — together with twelfth-century lands such as Ventava, Bandava and Tālava — were the ethnic foundation from which the later Latvian people emerged.

The first missionaries sent by the pope travelled up the Daugava River in the late twelfth century. Local people resisted conversion, but the mission drew the region into the European socio-political system for the first time.

By the early thirteenth century Germans ruled large parts of present-day Latvia, with crusader numbers swelling in the second half of the century after the fall of the Crusader States in the Middle East. Together with southern Estonia the conquered lands formed Livonia, embedding German knightly and urban elites who dominated society for centuries and left lasting Low German loanwords in Latvian.

Riga entered the Hanseatic League in 1282, followed later by Cēsis, Limbaži, Koknese and Valmiera. Membership made Riga a major east–west trading hub and forged enduring cultural and commercial links with western Europe.

The last master of the Order of Livonia converted his lands into the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia. Although a vassal of Lithuania and later Poland–Lithuania, it retained considerable autonomy and enjoyed a golden age in the sixteenth century.

The Livonian Confederation collapsed during the Livonian War, and by 1561 its lands were divided between Poland-Lithuania, Sweden and the vassal Duchy of Courland and Semigallia. Northern Latvia and southern Estonia passed under Polish–Lithuanian hegemony, ceded to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as the Duchy of Livonia, while Latgalia, the easternmost region, became part of the Commonwealth's Inflanty Voivodeship, beginning its separate confessional and linguistic path. Russia later annexed Vidzeme in 1721 and Courland in 1795, completing its control of the Latvian lands.

Under Swedish rule serfdom was eased, a network of schools for the peasantry was created and the power of regional barons was reduced. The period is remembered positively in Latvia and helped raise literacy and numeracy that later distinguished the Baltic provinces.

Under Swedish and German rule western Latvia embraced Lutheranism, while the isolated southern Latgallians adopted Catholicism under Polish and Jesuit influence. During the same period the Couronians, Semigallians, Selonians, Livs and northern Latgallians assimilated into a single Latvian people speaking one language.

After the Polish–Swedish War northern Livonia, including Vidzeme, came under Swedish rule, with sporadic fighting ending in the Truce of Altmark of 1629. Riga became the capital of Swedish Livonia and the largest city in the entire Swedish Empire.

The Great Northern War killed as many as 40 per cent of Latvians through famine and epidemic disease. Plague alone killed half the residents of Riga in 1710–1711, devastating the region's demographic and economic base.

Following the capitulation of Estonia and Livonia in 1710, the Treaty of Nystad ended the Great Northern War and transferred Vidzeme to Russia, where it became part of the Riga Governorate. This began two centuries of Russian imperial rule over the core of Latvian territory.

Latgale, which had remained the Commonwealth's Inflanty Voivodeship, was incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1772. Its distinct Catholic and dialectal identity persisted under new imperial rule.

The annexation of Courland and Semigallia in 1795 brought all of present-day Latvia into the Russian Empire. All three Baltic provinces nevertheless preserved local laws, German as official language and their own parliament, the Landtag.

Ports were expanded until Riga became the largest port in the Russian Empire, railways were laid and new factories, banks and a university were founded. Theatres, museums, schools and Riga's boulevards date from this period, while numeracy in Livonia and Courland exceeded imperial norms.

From the middle of the nineteenth century the Young Latvian movement laid the groundwork for Latvian nationalism, with leaders seeking Slavophile backing against the German-dominated social order. The rising use of Latvian in literature and public life became known as the First National Awakening.

Serfs were emancipated in Courland in 1817 and in Vidzeme in 1819. In practice the reform favoured landowners, dispossessing peasants of land without compensation and forcing many back to estate labour, though later reforms allowed peasants to repurchase land and create an independent farmer class.

Russification policies began in Latgale following the Polish-led January Uprising of 1863 and spread across the rest of present-day Latvia by the 1880s. The pressure sharpened national grievances that fed later political movements.

The song festival has been held since 1873, normally every five years, with around 30,000 performers taking part. More than 1.2 million folk song texts and 30,000 melodies have been identified, forming the core of Latvian cultural identity.

In the 1890s the broad leftist social and political New Current displaced the Young Latvians as the leading force in Latvian public life. It channelled the discontent of a growing urban proletariat alongside an increasingly influential Latvian bourgeoisie.

Radical land reform was the interwar republic's central policy, reversing centuries of estate domination. The landless share of the rural population fell from 61.2% in 1897 to 18% by 1936.

Popular discontent exploded in the revolution of 1905, which in the Baltic provinces took on a strongly nationalist as well as social character. It demonstrated the political mobilisation of Latvian society within the empire.

In 1915 most of Latvia's industry was moved into the Russian interior as the front approached. The loss left the future state with little manufacturing capacity and made radical land reform the central political question of the interwar republic.

After the power vacuum created by the Russian Revolution, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the Allied armistice with Germany, the People's Council proclaimed independence on 18 November 1918 and entrusted Kārlis Ulmanis with forming a government. On 26 November the German representative August Winnig formally handed political power to the Latvian provisional government.

By spring 1919 three rival governments contested Latvia: Ulmanis's provisional government, Pēteris Stučka's Soviet government backed by the Red Army, and Andrievs Niedra's German-backed administration. Estonian and Latvian forces defeated the Germans at Wenden in June 1919, Bermondt-Avalov's West Russian Volunteer Army was repelled in November, and Latvian and Polish troops cleared eastern Latvia of the Red Army in early 1920.

A freely elected constituent assembly convened on 1 May 1920 and adopted the Satversme in February 1922. Partly suspended after the 1934 coup, it was reaffirmed in 1990 and, as amended, remains in force today.

Latvia joined the League of Nations in 1921, securing international recognition of its independence. Its membership formally lasted until the League's dissolution in 1946, long after Soviet annexation.

Kārlis Ulmanis seized power in a bloodless coup on 15 May 1934, dissolving the Saeima, banning political parties and suspending part of the constitution, and ruling by decree as authoritarian president until the Soviet occupation of 1940. His regime created state corporations to buy up private firms in order to 'Latvianise' the economy.

Following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact most Baltic Germans departed under an agreement between Ulmanis's government and Nazi Germany, with a second resettlement scheme removing most of the remainder in summer 1940. Those racially approved were resettled mainly in Poland, ending a community that had shaped Latvia for seven centuries.

The Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies was established in 1939 from the Faculty of Agriculture, and Riga Stradiņš University in 1950 from the Faculty of Medicine. These institutions became the backbone of specialist training; Latvia ranked 41st in the Global Innovation Index in 2025.

The ten-year non-aggression pact contained a secret protocol, revealed only after Germany's defeat in 1945, dividing Northern and Eastern Europe into spheres of influence. Latvia, Estonia and Finland were assigned to the Soviet sphere, sealing the loss of Latvian independence.

Latvia had to grant the Soviet Union the right to station between 25,000 and 30,000 troops on its territory. State administrators were murdered and replaced by Soviet cadres, and rigged single-candidate elections produced an assembly that requested admission to the USSR.

Soviet forces occupied and annexed Latvia in 1940 under the secret protocols of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact; Nazi Germany occupied the country from 1941 to 1944, during which around 70,000 Latvian Jews were murdered. Soviet forces reoccupied Latvia in 1944–45 and it remained a Soviet republic until 1991.

Before Operation Barbarossa the Soviet regime removed at least 34,250 perceived opponents, most deported to Siberia where death rates were estimated at 40 per cent. The terror decimated Latvia's administrative and social elite.

Rural areas were forced into collective farms and Soviet farming methods, while an extensive bilingualism programme curtailed official use of Latvian in favour of Russian. Jewish, Polish, Belarusian, Estonian and Lithuanian schools were closed, leaving only Latvian and Russian as media of instruction.

On 5 August 1940 Latvia was formally absorbed into the USSR under the puppet government of Augusts Kirhenšteins. De facto independence ended for 45 years, with Soviet institutions replacing the republic's own.

Latvian paramilitary and Auxiliary Police units established by the occupiers took part in the Holocaust and other atrocities. Some 30,000 Jews were shot in Latvia in autumn 1941 and another 30,000 from the Riga ghetto were murdered in the Rumbula Forest in November and December 1941.

German troops attacked Soviet forces on 22 June 1941, reached Riga by 29 June and controlled Latvia by early July, aided by spontaneous Latvian uprisings against the Red Army. Latvia was then administered as part of Reichskommissariat Ostland.

After the siege of Leningrad ended in January 1944 the Red Army advanced, entering Latvia in July and taking Riga on 13 October 1944. Reoccupation brought further mass deportations, collectivisation and Sovietisation.

The mass deportation of 25 March 1949 targeted farming families resisting collectivisation and suspected opponents of Soviet rule. It remains one of the largest single deportation actions of Latvia's Soviet-era history.

Exploiting Latvia's developed infrastructure and educated specialists, Soviet planners built the RAF minibus works in Jelgava, electrotechnical plants in Riga and chemical factories in Daugavpils, Valmiera and Olaine. Latvia produced trains, ships, telephones, radios, engines and much else, but staffing the plants required continuous in-migration of skilled workers from across the USSR.

An influx of labourers, administrators and military personnel from Russia and other Soviet republics reshaped Latvia's demography; by 1959 about 400,000 Russian settlers had arrived. The ethnic Latvian share fell to 62%, and by 1989 to 52%, a legacy still central to Latvian politics.

Gauja National Park in Vidzeme was created in 1973, followed by Ķemeri in 1997, Slītere in 1999 and Rāzna in 2007. Nationally protected areas now cover about 20% of Latvia's land area across 706 designated sites.

Latvia's Red Book, created in 1977, lists 112 plant and 119 animal species. It underpinned conservation policy that saw Latvia ranked second worldwide in the 2012 Environmental Performance Index.

Under Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika, the first large demonstrations took place in Riga at the Freedom Monument in summer 1987, marking the start of the Singing Revolution in Latvia. Public protest at a symbol of pre-war independence broke the Soviet political monopoly.

A national movement crystallised in the Popular Front of Latvia in summer 1988, opposed by the pro-Soviet Interfront. The same year the pre-war Latvian flag flew again, becoming the official flag in 1990 as the republic gained greater autonomy.

On 23 August 1989, an estimated two million people joined hands from Tallinn through Riga to Vilnius, marking the 50th anniversary of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and demanding restoration of Baltic independence.

A meeting on 3 August 2026 to approve deferred interest payments and new financing for the state-owned airline was postponed after too few bondholders registered to vote. A repeat meeting was scheduled for 17 August 2026, days after interest on existing bonds fell due.

Provisional Eurostat data published on 7 August 2026 showed Latvia's R&D budget rising from €148 million in 2024 to €194 million in 2025, partly driven by new defence-related funding. Latvia's per-inhabitant spending remained the lowest of the three Baltic states.

The aircraft, flying under NATO's Baltic air-policing mission, intercepted the drone on 8 June 2026 after it was diverted into Latvian territory by Russian electronic-warfare systems. It was at least the fifth drone incursion recorded in Latvia since early May.

Two drones crossed into Latvia on 7 May 2026 after being diverted from Ukrainian targets by Russian electronic warfare, Ukraine's foreign minister said. Neither drone was intercepted for fear of harming civilians, and further incursions followed across the Baltic states later that month.

Siliņa stood down on 14 May 2026 after her coalition partner withdrew over the government's handling of a drone incursion near Rēzekne. The Saeima confirmed Andris Kulbergs of the United List as prime minister on 28 May 2026, leading a new four-party coalition by 66 votes to 25.

The boycott, ahead of the 6 March 2026 ceremony, protested the reinstatement of Russian athletes competing under their national flag after sanctions imposed over the invasion of Ukraine were eased.

Latvia assumed the seat on 2 January 2026, having been elected in June 2025 for its first term on the council, giving it a voice in decisions on international peace and security through 2027.

The audit, reported on 20 January 2026, said the Riga–Tallinn–Warsaw line faced years of delay, with Latvia's section identified as the furthest behind. Estonian officials repeatedly criticised the pace of Latvian progress over the following months, and Latvia risked losing EU funding over the delays.

Parliament voted 56 to 32 on 30 October 2025 to leave the convention, making Latvia the first European Union member state to exit the treaty. The government said domestic law already provided sufficient protections against domestic violence.

The service announced the arrest on 17 September 2025 amid tightened counter-intelligence efforts along Latvia's eastern border.

Russian nationals who failed the required Latvian language test in 2023 were given a two-year extension, but in 2025 letters ordering departure were issued to 841 who had not complied. The measure showed the hardening of language policy after 2022.

The three Baltic states switched from the Soviet-era BRELL grid to the Continental European grid on 8–9 February 2025, ending reliance on Russian and Belarusian operators for frequency control. The move had been planned for years as a security measure following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

After Krišjānis Kariņš resigned on 14 August 2023 over disagreement about widening his coalition, Evika Siliņa was sworn in on 15 September. Her cabinet of New Unity, the Union of Greens and Farmers and the Progressives commanded 52 of 100 seats.

Parliament chose Edgars Rinkēvičs as President of Latvia in May 2023, making him the European Union's first openly gay head of state. Later that year, in November 2023, Latvia ratified the Istanbul Convention on preventing violence against women after years of debate.

Relations with Russia deteriorated sharply after February 2022; Latvia withdrew its own ambassador from Moscow, expelled Russia's ambassador in January 2023 and barred Russian entry. It marked the effective rupture of bilateral ties.

A law passed in September 2022 stripped all influence and power over the Orthodox Church in Latvia from non-Latvians, including the patriarch of Moscow. It severed an institutional channel of Russian influence.

Amendments to the Law on Financing of National Defence, drafted by the Ministry of Defence, provided for a gradual increase in defence spending to 2.5% of GDP over three years. The measure responded to the deteriorating regional security environment.

In 2022 the government announced planned investments of one billion euros in new wind farms, expected to add 800 MW of capacity. The plan would supplement existing hydroelectric capacity at Pļaviņu, Rīgas and Ķeguma stations.

2019 was the warmest year in the history of weather observation in Latvia, with an average temperature 8.1 °C above the norm cited. The record underlined the climatic shift affecting a country whose flat terrain gives little altitudinal variation.

From 2019 Russian-language instruction was gradually discontinued in private colleges and universities and in public high schools, apart from subjects on Russian minority culture and history. All remaining schools and preschools using Russian in 2023 had to transition to Latvian within three years, a change completed by September 2025.

In late 2018 the archives published a full alphabetical index of some 10,000 people recruited as agents or informants by the Soviet KGB as of 1991. Publication followed two decades of public debate and required special legislation, revealing names, code names and birthplaces.

Latvia chaired the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2015, a decade after accession. It marked the country's arrival as a full participant in EU agenda-setting.

Latvia adopted the euro on 1 January 2014, becoming the 18th member of the eurozone and superseding the lats, itself the reintroduced pre-war currency, after meeting the EU's convergence criteria in the wake of a severe recession and an EU/IMF-backed financial rescue programme in 2008–11. Public opinion was divided, with 52% opposed in late 2013 but support rising to about 53% in January 2014.

The collapse killed 54 rush-hour shoppers and rescue personnel in November 2013. Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, in office since 2009, resigned in its aftermath.

A constitutional referendum was held on whether to adopt Russian as a second state language. The vote crystallised the linguistic divide between the Latvian majority and the large Russian-speaking minority.

In January 2011 Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania were invited into the Nordic countries' defence framework. In November 2012 the three Baltic states agreed to create a joint military staff the following year.

To attract foreign capital after the crisis, Latvia offered residence permits to investors putting at least €250,000 into property or into an enterprise with at least 50 employees and €10 million turnover. The scheme was designed to channel foreign investment into the domestic economy.

The current account moved from a 27% deficit in late 2006 into surplus by February 2010, and real GDP grew 5.5% in 2011 on export growth and reviving domestic demand. The IMF's post-programme monitoring in July 2012 confirmed a strong recovery, and unemployment fell from over 20% in 2010 to around 9.3% by 2014.

Five planning regions were created in 2009 to promote balanced development across the country, including a Riga region covering the capital and closely linked areas. The framework structured regional policy and EU funding.

Consumption-driven growth financed by private debt, a negative trade balance and a property boom that lifted prices 150% between 2004 and 2006 ended in fiscal contraction from late 2008, worsened by the bailout of Parex Bank. The economy fell 18% in the first quarter of 2009, the EU's largest contraction, and unemployment rose from 5.4% in November 2007 to 22.5% by April 2010, the highest in the EU.

From 1 January 2007 Latvia abolished conscription in favour of a fully professional contract force. Since 1996 more than 3,600 Latvian personnel have served in international operations from Bosnia and Kosovo to Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Mali, with seven fatalities.

Riga hosted the NATO Summit in 2006, the alliance's first in a former Soviet republic. The annual Riga Conference has since become a leading foreign and security policy forum in Northern Europe.

Latvia acceded to NATO on 29 March 2004 and to the European Union on 1 May 2004, anchoring its post-Soviet reorientation towards Western political and security structures.

Latvia signed the Schengen agreement on 16 April 2003 and began implementing it on 21 December 2007. Border-free travel deepened integration with the rest of the European Union.

Latvia became a WTO member in 1999, consolidating its integration into the multilateral trading system. A 1997 law had already widened the scope for selling land, including to foreigners, and American companies invested $127 million in 1999.

Eager to join Western economic institutions, Latvia signed a Europe Agreement with the EU in 1995 with a four-year transition period. It framed the market reforms, denationalisation and privatisation that reoriented the economy westwards.

Russian troops completed their withdrawal from Latvia in 1994, completing the recovery of Latvian sovereignty over its territory, though the Skrunda-1 radar station remained in Russian hands until it was shut down in 1998. The status of the Russian minority — some 28 per cent of the population — remains of concern to Moscow.

Latvia's parliament, the Saeima, was elected again in 1993 for the first time since the interwar republic. It restored the pre-war constitutional framework of parliamentary government, with 100 members.

An interparliamentary co-operation agreement between the Baltic Assembly and the Nordic Council was signed in 1992, with annual meetings from 2006. It anchored Latvia in trilateral Baltic and wider Nordic-Baltic co-operation from the early 1990s.

On 21 August 1991, as Soviet hardliners' coup attempt in Moscow collapsed, the Supreme Council declared the end of the transitional period and the full restoration of Latvia's independence, ending 51 years of Soviet rule and regaining both de facto and official independence. Western states, including Sweden, rapidly resumed diplomatic relations and extended recognition in the weeks that followed.

Soviet forces occupied the central publishing house in Riga and set up a Committee of National Salvation to usurp governmental functions. The attempt failed, though Moscow retained many central Soviet state authorities in Latvia during the transition.

Rather than granting universal citizenship to all permanent residents as the Popular Front had urged, Latvia limited it to those who were citizens in 1940 and their descendants. Most ethnic non-Latvians became non-citizens; by 2015 there were still 290,660, or 14.1% of the population, without voting rights in parliamentary elections.

On 4 May 1990 the Supreme Council declared the restoration of the independence of the Republic of Latvia and the Latvian SSR was renamed accordingly. Moscow continued to treat Latvia as a Soviet republic through 1990 and 1991, opening a contested transitional period.

Pro-independence Popular Front candidates took two-thirds of the seats in the March 1990 elections to the Supreme Council. The mandate enabled the legal restoration of independence weeks later.

Decades of Soviet industrialisation and in-migration pushed the population to just under 2.7 million in 1990. Sustained decline followed, and the population stood at about 1.83 million by the article's reckoning.

A 1989 resolution stated that the occupation of the Baltic states was 'not in accordance with law' and did not reflect the will of the Soviet people. The admission gave legal weight to Latvian claims of continuous statehood.