Estland

Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia (Estonian: Eesti Vabariik), is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia (343 km), and to the east by Lake Peipus and Russia (338.6 km). Across the Baltic Sea lies Sweden in the west and Finland in the north. The territory of Estonia covers 45,227 km2 (17,462 sq mi), and is influenced by a humid continental climate. The Estonians are a Finnic people, and the official language, Estonian, is a Finno-Ugric language closely related to Finnish, and distantly to Hungarian.Estonia is a democratic parliamentary republic divided into fifteen counties, with its capital and largest city being Tallinn. Estonia's population of 1.3 million makes it one of the least-populous member states of the European Union, Eurozone and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A developed country with an advanced, high-income economy, Estonia has the highest gross domestic product per person among the former Soviet republics,and is a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Estland, estnisch Eesti ,ist ein Staat in Nordeuropa und das nördlichste Land des Baltikums. Es grenzt im Süden an Lettland, im Osten an Russland sowie im Norden und Westen an die Ostsee. Über den Finnischen Meerbusen hinweg bestehen enge Beziehungen zu Finnland, und historisch gibt es durch die Deutsch-Balten viele kulturelle Verbindungen nach Deutschland.Der seit 1991 unabhängige Staat ist Mitglied der Vereinten Nationen, seit 2004 der EU. Estland ist zudem Mitglied des Europarats, der NATO sowie der OSZE, seit 2010 der OECD und seit 2011 der Eurozone.

Photos: National Geographic Michael Slabina David Lau Josh Bornstein