Lietuvos Respublika
Coat of arms
Motto: "Tautos jėga vienybėje"[citation needed] "The strength of the nation lies in unity"
Anthem: Tautiška giesmė National Hymn
Location of  Lithuania  (dark green) – in Europe  (green & dark grey) – in the European Union  (green)  —  [Legend]
Capital (and largest city)		Vilnius 54°41′N 25°19′E
Official language(s)		Lithuanian
Ethnic groups (2011)		83.9% Lithuanians, 6.6% Poles, 5.4% Russians, 1.3% Belarusians, 3.8% others and unspecified[1]
Demonym		Lithuanian
Government		Parliamentary republic[2]
-	President	Dalia Grybauskaitė
-	Prime Minister	Andrius Kubilius
-	Seimas Speaker	Irena Degutienė
Independence		from Russia and Germany (1918)
-	First mention of Lithuania	9 March 1009
-	Coronation of Mindaugas	6 July 1253
-	Personal union with Poland	2 February 1386
-	Creation of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth	1569
-	Partitions of the Commonwealth	1795
-	Independence declared	16 February 1918
-	1st and 2nd Soviet occupations	15 June 1940 and again 1944
-	Nazi German occupation	22 June 1941
-	Independence restored	11 March 1990
Area
-	Total	65,200 km2 (123rd) 25,174 sq mi
-	Water (%)	1.35%
Population
-	2011 estimate	3,207,060[3] (133rd)
-	2002 census	3,483,972
-	Density	50.3/km2 (120th) 141.2/sq mi
GDP (PPP)		2011 estimate
-	Total	$59.825 billion[4]
-	Per capita	$18,278[4]
GDP (nominal)		2011 estimate
-	Total	$40.333 billion[4]
-	Per capita	$12,323[4]
Gini (2003)		36 (medium)
HDI (2010)		0.783[5] (high) (44th)
Currency		Lithuanian litas (Lt) (LTL)
Time zone		EET (UTC+2)
-	Summer (DST)	EEST (UTC+3)
Date formats		yyyy-mm-dd (CE)
Drives on the		right
ISO 3166 code		LT
Internet TLD		.lt1
Calling code		370
1	Also .eu, shared with other European Union member states.

Lithuania (ⁱ/ˌlɪθuːˈeɪniə/ or /ˌlɪθjuːˈeɪniə/; Lithuanian: Lietuva), officially the Republic of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos Respublika) is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, and across the Baltic Sea to the west lie Sweden and Denmark. It shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and a Russian exclave (Kaliningrad Oblast) to the southwest. Lithuania has an estimated population of 3.2 million as of 2011, and its capital and largest city is Vilnius. The Lithuanians are a Baltic people, and the official language, Lithuanian, is one of only two living languages (together with Latvian) in the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family.

During the 14th century, Lithuania was the largest country in Europe: present-day Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia were territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. With the Lublin Union of 1569, Poland and Lithuania formed a new state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth lasted more than two centuries, until neighboring countries systematically dismantled it from 1772 to 1795, with the Russian Empire annexing most of Lithuania's territory.

In the aftermath of World War I, Lithuania's Act of Independence was signed on 16 February 1918, declaring the re-establishment of a sovereign state. Starting in 1940, Lithuania was occupied first by the Soviet Union and then by Nazi Germany. As World War II neared its end in 1944 and the Germans retreated, the Soviet Union reoccupied Lithuania.

On 11 March 1990, the year before the break-up of the Soviet Union, Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare independence. Prior to the global financial crisis of 2007–2010, Lithuania had one of the fastest growing economies in the European Union. Lithuania is a member of NATO, the Council of Europe, and the European Union. Lithuania became a full member of the Schengen Agreement on 21 December 2007.^[6] In 2009, Vilnius was celebrated as the European Capital of Culture; and Lithuania celebrated the millennium of its name. In 2011, Lithuania hosted Eurobasket 2011, the men's European Basketball Championship.

[edit] History

[edit] Prehistoric

The first people settled in the territory of Lithuania after the last glacial period in the 10th millennium BC. Over a millennium, the Proto-Indo-Europeans, who arrived in the 3rd – 2nd millennium BC, mixed with the local population and formed various Baltic tribes. The first written mention of Lithuania is found in a medieval German manuscript, the Annals of Quedlinburg, in an entry dated 9 March 1009.^[7]

[edit] Medieval

Trakai Island Castle

Initially inhabited by fragmented Baltic tribes, in the 1230s the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, who was crowned as King of Lithuania on 6 July 1253.^[8] After his assassination in 1263, pagan Lithuania was a target of the Christian crusades of the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order. Despite the devastating century-long struggle with the Orders, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania expanded rapidly, overtaking former Slavic principalities of Kievan Rus'.

By the end of the 14th century, Lithuania was one of the largest countries in Europe and included present-day Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia.^[9] The geopolitical situation between the west and the east determined the multicultural and multi-confessional character of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The ruling elite practiced religious tolerance and borrowed Chancery Slavonic language as an auxiliary language to the Latin for official documents.

Battle of Grunwald and Vytautas the Great in the centre

In 1385, the Grand Duke Jogaila accepted Poland's offer to become its king. He converted Lithuania to Christianity and established a personal union between Poland and Lithuania. After two civil wars, Vytautas the Great became the Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1392. During his reign, Lithuania reached the peak of its territorial expansion, centralization of the state was begun, and the Lithuanian nobility became increasingly prominent in state politics. Thanks to close cooperation, the armies of Lithuania and Poland achieved a great victory over the Teutonic Knights in 1410 at the Battle of Grunwald, one of the largest battles of medieval Europe.^[10][11][12]

After the deaths of Jogaila and Vytautas, the Lithuanian nobility attempted to break the union between Poland and Lithuania, independently selecting Grand Dukes from the Jagiellon dynasty. But, at the end of the 15th century, Lithuania was forced to seek a closer alliance with Poland when the growing power of the Grand Duchy of Moscow threatened Lithuania's Russian principalities and sparked the Muscovite–Lithuanian Wars and the Livonian War.

[edit] Modern

The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was created in 1569. As a member of the Commonwealth, Lithuania retained its institutions, including a separate army, currency, and statutory laws.^[13] Eventually Polonization affected all aspects of Lithuanian life: politics, language, culture, and national identity. From the mid-16th to the mid-17th centuries, culture, arts, and education flourished, fueled by the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation. From 1573, the Kings of Poland and Grand Dukes of Lithuania were elected by the nobility, who were granted ever increasing Golden Liberties. These liberties, especially the liberum veto, led to anarchy and the eventual dissolution of the state.

Two issues of the same popular prayer book, Auksa altorius (Golden Altar). The one on the left was illegal because it was printed in the Latin alphabet. The one on the right was legal and paid for by the Tsarist government.

Aušra - the first Lithuanian newspaper - formulated modern Lithuanian national identity.

During the Northern Wars (1655–1661), the Lithuanian territory and economy were devastated by the Swedish army. Before it could fully recover, Lithuania was ravaged during the Great Northern War (1700–1721). The war, plague, and famine caused the deaths of approximately 40% of the country's population.^[14] Foreign powers, especially Russia, became dominant in the domestic politics of the Commonwealth. Numerous factions among the nobility used the Golden Liberties to prevent any reforms. Eventually, the Commonwealth was partitioned in 1772, 1792, and 1795 by the Russian Empire, Prussia, and Habsburg Austria.

The largest area of Lithuanian territory became part of Russian Empire. After unsuccessful uprisings in 1831 and 1863, the Tsarist authorities implemented a number of Russification policies. They banned the Lithuanian press, closed cultural and educational institutions, and made Lithuania part of a new administrative region called Northwestern Krai. These ruthless Russification policies failed owing to extensive network of book smuggler and secret Lithuanian home schooling.

After the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), when German diplomats assigned what were seen as Russian spoils of war to Turkey, the relationship between Russia and the German Empire became complicated. The Russian Empire resumed the construction of fortresses at its western borders for defence against a potential invasion from Germany in the West. On 7 July 1879 the Russian Emperor Alexander II approved of a proposal from the Russian military leadership to build the largest "first-class" defensive structure in the entire state – the 65 km² (25 sq mi) Kaunas Fortress.^[15] Between 1868 and 1914, approximately 635,000 people, almost 20% of the population, emigrated from Lithuania.^[16] Large numbers of Lithuanians went to the United States in 1867–1868 after a famine.^[17] A Lithuanian National Revival laid the foundations of the modern Lithuanian nation and independent Lithuania.

[edit] 20th century

The original 20 members of the Council of Lithuania after signing the Act of Independence of Lithuania, 16 February 1918.

Map showing changes in the territory of Lithuania from the 13th century to the present day.

During World War I, the Council of Lithuania (Lietuvos Taryba) declared the independence of Lithuania on 16 February 1918, and the re-establishment of the Lithuanian State. Lithuania's foreign policy was dominated by territorial disputes with Poland and Germany. The Vilnius Region, and Vilnius, the historical capital of Lithuania, (and so designated in the Constitution of Lithuania) were seized by the Polish army during Żeligowski's Mutiny in October 1920 and annexed two years later by Poland. For 19 years Kaunas became the Temporary capital of Lithuania. The Polish occupation of Vilnius was greatly resented by Lithuania; there were no diplomatic relations between the two states for most of the period between the two world wars.

Acquired during the Klaipėda Revolt of 1923, the Klaipėda Region was ceded to Germany after a German ultimatum in March 1939. Domestic affairs were controlled by the authoritarian President, Antanas Smetona and his party, the Lithuanian National Union, who came to power after the coup d'état of 1926.

The Soviet Union returned Vilnius to Lithuania after the Soviet invasion of Eastern Poland in September 1939.^[18] In June 1940, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed Lithuania in accordance to the secret protocols of Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.^[19][20] A year later Russia was attacked by Nazi Germany, leading to the Nazi occupation of Lithuania. The Nazis and their collaborators murdered around 190,000 Lithuanian Jews^[21] (91% of the pre-war Jewish community) during the Holocaust.

Baltic Way. The struggle for independence.

After the retreat of the German armed forces, the Soviets re-established the annexation of Lithuania in 1944. It followed with massive deportations of trouble-making citizens to Siberia ^[22], complete nationalisation and collectivisation and general sovietization of everyday life. From 1944 to 1952 approximately 100,000 Lithuanian partisans fought a guerrilla war against the Soviet system. An estimated 30,000 partisans and their supporters were killed, and many more were arrested and deported to Siberian gulags. It is estimated that Lithuania lost 780,000 people during World War II.^[23]

The advent of perestroika and glasnost in the late 1980s allowed the establishment of Sąjūdis, an anti-communist independence movement. After a landslide vic

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