Fact File
Lithuania is situated on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea and covers 65,3 thous. sq. km. It has 99 km of coastline. The capital is Vilnius.
The country is bordered to the North by Latvia (610 km frontier), to the East and south by Belarus (724 km) and Poland (110 km), and to the Southwest by the Kaliningrad Region of the Russian Federation (303 km). Including the coastline, its borders total 1,846 km.
The climate is maritime/ continental. The mean annual temperature is +6.1°C, the average temperature in January being -4.9° C and in July +17.0 °C. The mean annual precipitation is 661 mm.
Local time is GMT+2 hours (e.g. Helsinki, Riga, Tallin), daylight saving from 2003 Spring.
The geographical centre of Europe lies 24 km North of Vilnius, the capital. This was determined by the National Geographical Institute of France in 1989.
Lithuania’s national coat of arms is a white Vytis (knight) against a red background. The colours of the state flag are yellow, green and red.
The state language is Lithuanian. This language belongs to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European family of languages and is akin to Sanskrit. Lithuanian has retained more of the old vocalic system and more morphological features than any other living Indo-European language. Today’s Lithuanian language began to take shape in the mid-16th century. The scholar regarded as having initiated its standardisation was Martynas Mazvydas, author of the first Lithuanian book, which was published in Karaliaucius (Königsberg) in 1547.
The population of Lithuania totalled 3.7 million in 2000. 81.8% were Lithuanians, 8.1% Russians, 6.9% Poles, 1.4% Belarussians, 1% Ukrainians, 0.1% Jews and 0.7% Latvians, Germans, Tartars, Gypsies and others.
There are about one million Lithua-nians residing in the USA, Canada, South America, the UK, Poland, Germany and Australia. More than 150,000 Lithuanians live in Russia and other eastern countries.
The majority of Lithuanian religious believers are Roman Catholics. There are also large numbers of Russian Orthodox, Evangelical Lutherans and Baptists, as well adherents of Islam and Judaism. The followers of all religious denominations are held equal before the law. All schools offer religious studies as an optional subject.