Lithuania is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. Lithuania is one of the Baltic states. Situated on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, to the southeast of Sweden and Denmark, Lithuania is bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and Kaliningrad Oblast (a Russian exclave) to the southwest. Lithuania has an estimated population of 2.8 million people as of 2019. The capital and largest city is Vilnius and other major cities are Kaunas and Klaipėda. Lithuanians are Balts. The official language, Lithuanian

Introduction

Lithuania is a developed country with an advanced, high-income economy, a very high Human Development Index, a very high standard of living and performs favourably in measurements of civil liberties, press freedom, internet freedom, democratic governance and peacefulness. Lithuania is a member of the European Union, the Council of Europe,

Lithuania has a temperate climate with both maritime and continental influences. It is defined as humid continental (Dfb) under the Köppen climate classification (but is close to oceanic in a narrow coastal zone).

Lithuania is located in the Baltic region of Europe and covers an area of 65,200 km (25,200 sq mi). It lies between latitudes 53° and 57° N.

Lithuania lies at the edge of the North European Plain. Its landscape was smoothed by the glaciers of the last ice age, and is a combination of moderate lowlands and highlands. Its highest point is Aukštojas Hill at 294 metres (965 ft) in the eastern part of the country. The terrain features numerous lakes (Lake Vištytis, for example) and wetlands, and a mixed forest zone covers over 33% of the country.

The rest of the coast is sheltered by the Curonian sand peninsula. Lithuania's major warm-water port, Klaipėda, lies at the narrow mouth of the Curonian Lagoon, a shallow lagoon extending south to Kaliningrad. The country's main and largest river, the Nemunas River, and some of its tributaries carry international shipping.

After a re-estimation of the boundaries of the continent of Europe in 1989, Jean-George Affholder, determined that the geographic centre of Europe was in Lithuania,26 kilometres north of Lithuania's capital city of Vilnius.