Geography
Lithuania is a small Middle European state at the shore of the Baltic Sea. Covering an area of 65 302 km² it is similar in size to Ireland. Lithuania’s territory extends 373 km from East to West and 276 km from North to South. There are 6129 kilometres from the geographical centre of Lithuania to the equator and 3873 km to the North Pole.
Our country shares borders with five neighbouring states. In the North, Lithuania has a 588 km border with Latvia, in the East and South – 660 km border with Belarus. In the South West, Lithuania borders with Poland (103 km) and the Russian Federation (273 km). More than three fourths of Lithuania’s borders stretch along rivers and lakes. Lithuania’s economic zone in the Baltic Sea (with and area around 6 400 km²) reaches the waters of Sweden. We are proud of our beautiful coastline, which stretches for over 100 kilometres.
Lithuania’s is a flat land indeed. This is most evident as you travel from the eastern to the western part of the country – towards the Baltic Sea. Our highest hill is Aukštójo kalnas rising 293.8 m above the sea level. There are no mountains in Lithuania.
More than a half of Lithuania’s land is suitable for agriculture. About one third of our land area is occupied by forests.
Lithuania is commonly called the land of rivers and lakes with inland waters making up 4 % of its territory. The total number of rivers and rivulets is 22 200 (the longest river - Nemunas), and the number of lakes is well over 830. The deepest of them is Tauragnas (62.5 m deep).
