Estonia

Estonia – Nation and landscape

Estonia definitely isn’t the smallest country in the world. With an area of 45 227 sq km, Estonia is for example larger than Slovenia, Holland, Denmark and Switzerland.

Estonia stretches 350 km from east to west and 240 km from north to south.

There are about 1521 islands and about 1200 lakes on the territory of Estonia.

Estonia consists of 48,7% of forest, 37.4% of agricultural lands, 7.4% of swamps and wetlands, 4,6% of water and 1.9% of artificial surfaces.

Estonia’s population ranks amongst the smallest in the world: as of January 2007, an estimated 1 342 000 people live in Estonia - a density of less than 30 people per sq km.

A little less than 70% of Estonians live in towns. Nearly a third of the nation (401 000 people) live in

Tallinn, the capital of Estonia and about 70% of the population reside in cities in general.

The larger of these in descending order are: the university town of Tartu (101 000 p.), the industrial border town of Narva (67 000 p.) and the summer capital of Pärnu (44 000).

Estonia - Nature

About 10% of Estonia is a nature reserve. Various kinds of forests comprise slightly under half of

Estonia’s territory. Many plant and animal species live in Estonia which are

rare and no longer found elswhere in Europe. The elk, Roe Deer and Wild boar are amongst Estonia’s

common large mammals. There are also wolves, Brown Bears, Ringed Seals and Grey Seals.

Estonia - Language

Estonian is used as mother tongue by just under 1.1 million people. Approximately 921 000 of these live in Estonia, the reminder in Sweden, Canada, the United States, Russia and elsewhere.

Estonian is one of the world’s smallest cultural languages.

Estonian has 14 cases, but no articles or grammatical gender. The same pronoun is used to refer a man, woman or even a thing.

The Estonian language uses Latin Alphabet, nowadays 32 letters are used in spelling.

Estonia - History

The first inhabitants came to Estonia around 11 000 years ago.

Estonia has been conqured by many countries, such as Sweden, Germany, Denmark and Russia.

Estonians are often known as the Singing Nation, because of the Song Festival that takes place after every forth year.

As for the size of Estonian folklore collection, we come second after Ireland.

The first book in Estonia was published in 1525.

Estonia – Kiviõli and Kiviõli I highschool

We are from Kiviõli, county Ida-Virumaa. It’s a small town, but well known for it’s highest artificial

ashmountains and oli shale industry. Every summer takes place a pig motofestival and

different other events. Kiviõli has had a big progress in developing during last

five years. We have a youth centre, skate park, music and art school and many other activities for all ages.