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Country
Information
Capital:
Vilnius
Form
of government:
Parliamentary Republic (since 1991)
Language:
Lithuanian
is an Indo-European language belonging to the Baltic group
of languages, which consists of Lithuanian, Latvian, and
the extinct Prussian. It possibly Europe’s most ancient
language, and being more closely related to Sanskrit than
to either Greek or Latin may be considered the ‘cross-over
point between the languages of Europe and of India.
More
than 3 million people consider Lithuanian as their mother
tongue. Outside Lithuania it is spoken in the border regions
of both Poland and Belarus by native Lithuanians, and
by a Lithuanian diaspora in a number of countries, the
largest Lithuanian emigration having been to the United
States.
Religion:
Mainly Catholic, others include Russian Orthodox, Evangelical
Lutheran, Jewish.
National
currency:
Litas (LTL). The current exchange rate is 3,4528LTL =
1 EUR
Area:
65,300sq.km
Total
land frontiers:
1,624km (Latvia, Belarus, Poland, the Russian Federation
- Kaliningrad oblast)
Coast
line:
90 km
Population:
3,484, 000. Nearly a million Lithuanians live abroad,
mainly in the USA.
Population
by area:
urban
67%,
rural 33%.
Population
by gender:
male
46.8%,
female 53.2%.
Life
expectancy:
male
65 years,
female 77 years
Ethnic
composition:
Lithuanian
83.5%,
Polish
6.7%,
Russian6.3%,
Belarusian
1.2%
Others
2.3%.
Larger
Cities by population:
Vilnius
542,300
Kaunas 378,900
Klaipeda 193,000
Siauliai 133,900
Panevezys 119,700
Lithuanian
population in Britain
Perhaps
200,000, of which perhaps 3,000 in Wales |
