Location
Estonia is a country in Northern Europe, on the shores of Gulf of Finland and the Baltic Sea.

Area
45,227 sq. km of which 5.16% is water.

Neighbours
Finland, Latvia, Russia.

Population
1,330,068

Goverment
Unitary Parliamentary Republic

Capital
Tallinn, the capital, is the most populous and the primate city of Estonia. Tallinn was first mentioned in 1154, but received city rights in 1248. Tallinn’s Old Town in Kesklinn is one of the best preserved medieval cities in Europe and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Tallinn also has the highest number of start-ups per person among European countries and is the birthplace of many international high technology companies, including Skype and Transferwise. The city is to house the headquarters of the European Union’s IT agency. It is home to the NATO Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence.

Currency
Euro since 2011

Climate
Estonia has a temperate climate, with four seasons of near-equal length.

Landscape
Estonia is a flat country, but the landscape is largely the product of glacial activity. The south is covered with moraine hills, and the central part of the country abounds in elongated hills with flat tops. The country’s highest point, Suur Munamägi (Egg Mountain), is in the hilly southeast and reaches 318 m (1,043 ft) above sea level. Estonia is one of the most forest-rich countries in the world – approximately half of our land area or 2.3 million hectares are covered with forest. Another roughly 45% of Estonian forests belong to the Estonian state.

Coastline
There is 3,794 kilometres (2,357 mi) of coastline marked by numerous bays, straits, and inlets, rocky and sandy beaches. Estonia’s territories include mainland Estonia and a group of 2,222 islands and islets in the Baltic Sea.

Time zone
GMT +2 (winter), GMT +3 (summer)

Official language
Estonian. Russian is by far the most spoken minority language in the country. Russian is spoken as a secondary language by forty- to seventy-year-old ethnic Estonians, because Russian was the unofficial language of the Estonian SSR from 1944 to 1991 and taught as a compulsory second language during the Soviet era.

Ethnic groups
68.8% Estonians, 24.2% Russians, 2.0% Ukrainians, 0.8% Belarusians, 0.6% Finns, 3.4% others.

Religion
64.87% No religion, 34.03% Christianity (19.87% Orthodoxy, 12.02% Lutheranism, 2.14% Other Christian) and 1.10% others.

International airports
Lennart Meri Tallinn Airport