40+ Interesting Facts About Latvia
Latvia is a country in northeastern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic States, located in the middle of the other two (Estonia and Lithuania). Alongside the two Baltic States, Latvia shares land borders with Russia and Belarus and a maritime border with Sweden. Latvian is the sole official language of Latvia. It is one of the two surviving Baltic languages (a group of Indo-European languages) alongside the Lithuanian language. Russian is the most learned foreign language in Latvia due to its Soviet past. It is the mother tongue of nearly 38% of Latvians. However, the country banned teaching Russian in schools in 2023 due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. From 2026, children can adopt one of the languages of the EU (European Union) or EEA (European Economic Area) as a foreign language in place of the Russian language. ( Source ) Humans started to inhabit Latvia in 9,000 B.C. Finns settled here around 3,000 B.C., and the pre-Baltic tribes arrived nearly a thousand years lat