Estonia

Estonia: population and cities

Population

According to Countryaah website, Estonia has around 1.34 million residents.

Ethnic composition

The Estonians make up 69% of the population, the other larger nationality groups are: Russians with 26% (about 345,000), Ukrainians with 2%, Belarusians with 1% and Finns with 1%.

Religious affiliation

The Estonians mainly belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church, but the Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Baptist, Methodist and Roman Catholic Churches are also represented.

National language

The national language is Estonian, heard the ugurischen Finn to the family of languages. It is therefore relatively easy for Estonians to learn Finnish. The official language of Estonia is Estonian, but Russian is spoken a lot, which the traveler will quickly realize. Anyone who does not speak both languages can communicate well in German or English. In general, one can say that old people understand German better, the younger ones speak better English.

Capital, other cities

The capital of Estonia is Tallinn (also known as the former Hanseatic city of Reval) with approx. 417,150 residents.

Other cities are:

The university city of Tartu with approx. 101,300 residents, the oldest city in Estonia, which is of particular importance due to the Estonian national movement that arose here. The industrial cities of Narva, the border town to Russia is and was, with approx. 67,400 residents and Kohtla-Järve with approx. 46,300 residents and the health resort Pärnu with approx. 44,600 residents.

Estonia: geography, map

Area and land use

Defined by DigoPaul, Estonia covers an area of 45,227 km².

Thereof:

• Forest

  Around 50% of the country is forested.

• Meadow/pasture land

  Around 7% of the land is used as meadow or pasture land.

• Arable land and fields

  Around 27% of the land is used as arable land or fields, especially for growing grain, potatoes and vegetables.

• Swamp

  Almost a fifth of the area of Estonia is covered by swamps, the largest of which are in the central and eastern parts of the country.

• Mountains

  There are no mountains in Estonia.

National borders

Estonia borders:

• Latvia with a border length of 339 km,
• Russia with a border length of 294 km.

Estonia has a coast to the Baltic Sea with a length of around 3,000 km.

Tidal range

In Estonia, the mean tidal range of the Baltic Sea is between 20 and 40 cm. (For a detailed explanation of ebb and flow, see Tides, Ebb and Flow).

Compare

Incidentally, the world's highest tidal range can be found in the Bay of Fundy in Canada, where it is up to 16 meters, and at spring tide even over 20 meters. The Bay of Fundy is located on the Atlantic between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, which is called Nova Scotia in German and whose capital is Halifax. On the German North Sea coast it varies between one and three meters. In the western Baltic Sea, on the other hand, the tidal range is only 0.3 meters, while it is barely noticeable in the eastern Baltic Sea.

Longitude and latitude

Estonia extends over the following geographical latitude (abbreviation Δφ) and geographical longitude (abbreviation Δλ):

You can find detailed information on this subject under Longitude and Latitude.

Legal time

For Estonia, the following value applies to Central European Time (CET). A minus sign means that it is earlier there, a plus sign that it is later than CET:

Further and detailed explanations of the time can be found under Time zones, time.

The highest point of the sun in Tallinn

Tallinn lies at a north latitude of around φ = 59.5 °. If the sun, or its image point, is at the northern tropic, i.e. at δ = 23.5 °, summer begins in Tallinn, this is June 21. Then, for the highest position of the sun at noon, according to Eq. 1 (see position of the sun):

59.5 ° = (90 ° - h) + 23.5 °

so:

At 54 °, the sun in Tallinn has the highest level of the entire year above the horizon (more precisely: above the horizon).

mountains

Suur Munamägi

The highest mountain in the country is the Suur Munamägi with a height of only 318 m. The Suur Munamägi is also the highest peak in the entire Baltic region.

Rivers

There are only a few rivers in Estonia that are longer than 100 km.

Emajõgi, Võhandu, Pärnu

The longest rivers are the Emajõgi with a length of 260 km, the Võhandu with a length of 162 km and the Pärnu with a length of 145 km.

Lakes

There are over 1,400 smaller and larger lakes in Estonia.

Peipsi Lake (Peipus Lake)

The largest lake is the Peipsi Lake (Peipus Lake) with an area of 3,555 km², of which 1,533 km² are in Estonia and the rest in the Russian Federation. It has a maximum depth of 15.3 m. Lake Peipsi is the fourth largest lake in Europe.

Pseikov Lake

The Pseikov Lake has an area of 710 km². The border with Russia runs through its center.

Kaali Lake

Kaali Lake was created by a meteorite impact. It is located in the town of the same name Kaali on Saarema.

It has a diameter of approx. 110 m and is 16 m deep.

Islands

There are 1,521 islands in front of the country, most of them uninhabited. It is worth mentioning that the British submarine "HMS E18" was recently found near the island of Hiiumaa, which was sunk here during the First World War in 1916 - after it had previously torpedoed the German destroyer V 100.

The main islands are:

Gulf of Finland, Bay of Riga, Baltic Sea

Estonia is located on the southern edge of the Gulf of Finland, on the Riga Bay, both of which are part of the Baltic Sea - and on the "open" Baltic Sea.