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As the centre of the Baltic States, Latvia benefits from an excellent logistical location. With around 600,000 inhabitants, the sophisticated Latvian capital Riga is the second largest city (after the Lithuanian capital Vilnius) in the Baltic states and also their most important trade and service centre.
Latvians love ice hockey, nature and folk singing. 30,000 melodies and 1.2 million lyrics are said to have been preserved. At the same time, Latvia was the country most severely affected by the
by the Soviet resettlement policy. Today, almost 38 per cent of the population belong to minorities, with Russians making up Russians make up the largest group with around 27 per cent of the total population. The majority of them are immigrants between 1940 and 1990 or their descendants.
The most important industrial sectors include Mechanical engineering and metal processing, wood and furniture industry, food industry, chemical industry and textile industry. Latvia maintains a close partnership with its neighbours Estonia and Lithuania in political and security matters as well as in business and trade amd security issues as well as in business and trade.
Facts
- Total population: 1.8 million (2024)
- Area: 64,589 km²
- Capital: Riga
- Neighbouring countries: Lithuania, Belarus, Estonia, Russia
- Business languages: Latvian, English, Russian, German
- Currency: Euro since 1 January 2014; previously lats (LVL)
- System of government: Parliamentary republic
- Head of state: President Edgars Rinkēvičs since 08/07/2023
- Head of government: Prime Minister Evika Siliņa since 15/09/2023 (new entity)
- Parliament: Unicameral parliament ‘Saeima’, 100 deputies
Economy
- GDP 2023: EUR 40bn
- GDP per capita 2023: EUR 21,440
- Inflation rate 2023: 9.1%
- Public debt 2023: 43,6%
- Unemployment rate 2023: 6.5%
- Imports 2023: EUR 23.2 bn
- Exports 2023: EUR 18.9 billion
- Ease of Doing Business 2020: 19th place out of 190 evaluated countries
- World Competitiveness Ranking 2024: 45th place out of 67 countries
- Corruption Perception Index 2023: 36th place out of 180 countries evaluated
Infrastructure
Information will follow.
History
Latvia's ‘German’ period ended with the Second World War following a resettlement agreement between the German Reich and Latvia. Almost 50,000 Baltic Germans were ‘repatriated’ to the Reich in 1939. In 1940, with the backing of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, Soviet troops occupied Latvia. As a result, around 35,000 Latvians were deported to Siberia and the rest of the German minority were resettled. Latvia was then occupied by the Wehrmacht in 1941. The German occupying forces almost completely exterminated Latvia's Jewish population and carried out numerous massacres of sections of the population suspected of collaborating with the USSR. In 1945, the Russian occupying power returned and continued to deport, imprison and kill Latvians, which led to a wave of refugees fleeing to Germany or overseas. The Second World War brought gigantic demographic and political upheavals to the small country.
These upheavals continued under Soviet rule: the USSR aimed to turn the Latvian population into a minority in its own country and, in addition to mass deportations, pursued an intensive Russification of the population. Before the Second World War, 77% Latvians, 9% Russians, 5% Jews and 4% Germans lived in Latvia; in 1989, at the end of Soviet rule, there were 52% Latvians, 34% Russians, 0.1% Germans and Jews.
In 1990, following the ‘Singing Revolution’, Latvia declared its independence restored. In 1991, the USSR recognised the independence of the Baltic states. Latvia went through a difficult period of transformation and transition, but over the course of the 1990s it achieved an economic upturn and successful democratisation. Latvia became a member of the EU and NATO in 2004, and the lats was replaced by the euro in 2014.