Latvia

Situated in north-eastern Europe with a coastline along the Baltic Sea, is geographically the middle of the three former Soviet Baltic republics.

It has language links with Lithuania to the south and historical and ecumenical ties with Estonia to the north.

OverviewOverviewFactsLeadersMedia

Not much more than a decade after it declared independence following the collapse of the USSR, was welcomed as an EU member in May 2004. The move came just weeks after it joined Nato. These developments would have been extremely hard to imagine in not-so-distant Soviet times.