Capital: Vilnius
Currency: Litas (LTL)
Borders: Belarus 502 km, Latvia 453 km, Poland 91 km, Russia
(Kaliningrad) 227 km
Lithuania is a Baltic country and is located on the Baltic coast.
Lithuania borders Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south
and the Kaliningrad region of Russia and Poland to the west. The
total area of Lithuania measures 65,200 sq km, making it the biggest
of the Baltic countries. Lithuania's terrain is low-lying like
Latvia and Estonia. The highest point of elevation is Juozapines at
292m. There are many small lakes scattered about the landscape and
the presence of the Nemunas and Neris rivers means that Lithuania is
well watered and its land area is very fertile as a result. The
fertile central plains of Lithuania are intersected by hills that
are age-old glacial deposit systems. The northwestern coastline
measures 99 km and offers beaches largely untouched by foreign
tourism. One quarter of the country is covered in evergreen forest
where wild wolves still roam!
Along with the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Lithuania
announced independence. Up until this time, Lithuania had been
annexed by the former USSR since 1940. Lithuania is like the other
Baltic countries since independence in that it wishes to shake off
its soviet past and exist solely as a Lithuanian nation. Even though
Lithuanian is the national language, much of the population is able
to speak Russian as well. The minorities of the population are
Russian, Polish and Belarusian peoples. The capital city is Vilnius
and the national unit of currency is the Litas.
Lithuania has the highest percentage of national workforce in the
agriculture sector of all the Baltic countries. The agricultural
products of Lithuania are grain, potatoes, sugar beets, flax and
vegetables. Industry is also very important in Lithuania and 30% of
the national workforce represent this sector. The main industries
are the manufacture of metal-cutting machine tools, electric motors,
television sets, refrigerators and freezers, petroleum refining,
shipbuilding, furniture making, textiles, food processing,
fertilizers and the production of agricultural machinery. The
largest export partners of Lithuania are Latvia and Germany. The
transport network consists of 1998 km of railways and 44,000 km of
highways.
The climate is maritime temperate with mild wet summers and very
cold winters, with large amounts of snow. The coldest months tend to
be January to March. The coldest temperature ever recorded in
Vilnius was -30°C. |
