Lithuania, with an area of 65,200 square kilometers, is the largest of the three Baltic states. It has a population of about 2.8 million, the largest of the three countries.
Figure - Topography of Lithuania
Unlike the other two countries, Lithuania was the limit of Finnish control, so Lithuania was less influenced by Northern Europe and had deeper ties to Poland, Germany, and Belarus on land.
The longest river in Lithuania is the Nemunas River, which originates in the mountains of Belarus and flows into the Gulf of Kurs. Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, is located on the Neris River, a tributary of the Nemunas River. Vilnius is only a few dozen kilometers from the Belarusian border, and Lithuania does not build its capital by the sea, as Estonia and Latvia have done. Among the Baltic states, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, the capital is all next to the Baltic Sea, and it is the largest seaport and the largest city in the country, and the capitals of Germany, Poland and Lithuania are also over the baltic sea, but not next to the Baltic Sea.
Figure - Nemunas River
With a total length of 1644 km but a coastline of only about 90 km, Lithuania is a country with strong land attributes, and Lithuania's historical expansion has been mainly on land.
In 1386, the monarch of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania married a Polish princess, who was also the only heir to the Polish throne, and the Lithuanian monarch was equivalent to marrying a queen, annexing larger Poland with a smaller Lithuania, and also opening the prelude to more than 200 years of the Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom.
After all, it is a snake swallowing elephant, Lithuania is deeply influenced by Polish culture, and the combination of the local Baltic language and Polish language has formed the current Lithuanian language. After the kingdom grew, it began to expand on all sides, and the largest territory included Minsk, the capital of present-day Belarus, and Kiev, the capital of Ukraine.
Later, the kingdom was divided under the combined blows of Tsarist Russia, Prussia and Austria, and Lithuania belonged to Tsarist Russia. Germany occupied Lithuania during World War I, and Lithuania became independent after the war. However, on the eve of World War II, the Soviet Union annexed the baltic states, and Lithuania was once again incorporated into the Soviet Union.
The Nemunas River flows slowly westward, but instead of flowing directly into the Baltic Sea, it passes through the Gulf of Kurs into the Baltic Sea. With an area of about 1619 square kilometers and an average depth of only 3.8 meters, Coors Bay is a freshwater lake.
The Kursky Spit, which separates the Gulf of Kurs from the Baltic Sea, is 98 km long, of which Lithuania accounts for 52 km and Kaliningrad in Russia for 46 km. The maximum width of the sand mouth is about 3800 meters, the narrowest is only 400 meters, the only gap is at the north end, and the width is only about 500 meters.
Photo - Coors Bay
The formation of the Kur's sand spout is now the most widely spread because the seawater hits the coast after the tide resurges, and the new seawater impacts each other, and various substances are deposited at the seawater impact.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, eastern Lithuania did not border Russia, but because Russia was in the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, the southwest of Lithuania was bordered by Russia, and it shared the Kurth Spit and the Kursky Gulf.
The only outlet to the Kursky Gulf, located at the northern end, was built as early as the Prussian period when the port of Merles was built, when the entire Gulf of Kurs belonged to Prussia (Germany), and now Lithuania also built the port Klaipeda, which is the third largest city in Lithuania and the largest port.
The Gulf of Kurs has no outlet to the sea in Russia, and the impact on Kaliningrad in Russia is particularly large, and Russian ships have to pass through lithuanian waters and drive through the port of Klaipeda when they go out of the Kurs Bay.
Kaliningrad is so troublesome to go to sea, why doesn't Russia dig a canal to open up the Kurs Bay and the Baltic Sea?
The Gulf of Coors does not have the nature of the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal, which must be passed, and in terms of economic value, the cost of excavating the canal and building the seaport is very high, the cost is difficult to recover, and the cargo throughput of Kaliningrad is difficult to support such a huge project. In 2000, The Kursky Wast became a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it has been even less likely to destroy it ever since.
Due to the lack of decent seaports in Lithuania, when the Soviet Union immigrated to the west, it was reluctant to come to Lithuania, and more to Latvia, Estonia, and Kaliningrad. Kaliningrad was originally German territory in southwestern Lithuania and was annexed to the Soviet Union after World War II.
Lithuania's population base is relatively large, Russians are reluctant to come, and for various reasons, even if the Soviet Union has carried out many migrations, lithuanians still account for about 80% by 1990, the second largest ethnic group is Poles, and Russians are only third.
Figure - Lithuanians
Lithuania is a militant nation and, because of its demographic structure, Lithuania is the only former Soviet union state that declared independence in March 1990, and most other countries did not declare independence until August 1991.