LATVIA (Lettonia). – A Baltic republic that declared independence from the Russian Empire on 18 November 1918 and was annexed, as a federated republic, to the U.S.S.R. on 4 August 1940. In 1945 a portion of the Jaunlatgale district (1,160 sq. km. with 30,000 inhabitants) was detached and transferred to the R.S.F.S.R. (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic). In this way Latvia now extends over 64,630 sq. km., remaining the largest (though not the most populous) of the three Baltic republics incorporated into the U.S.S.R.
I. GEOGRAPHY
The territory, which forms part of the great Sarmatian plain (maximum elevation 314 m.), is flat and well cultivated, with a coastline of about 500 km., indented by the wide Gulf of Riga. The climate has a continental character, slightly moderated along the coast.The population, which numbered 2 million on the eve of the last war, was estimated at 1.8 million in 1945 due to war losses and the forced exodus of the German minority and of those deported for political reasons to the U.S.S.R. Besides the 75.5% of Latvians, there were, before the war, 12% Russians, 3.2% Germans, 2.5% Poles, 4.8% Jews, etc. Only one city, Riga, the capital, exceeded 100,000 inhabitants (385,000 in 1935), and one, Liepāja, exceeded 50,000 (57,000).
Agriculture (to which more than two-thirds of the population is devoted), forestry (27% of Latvia’s surface is covered by woods), and livestock form the basis of the national economy. The first provides cereals (insufficient for domestic consumption) and especially flax, a state monopoly; the second yields a good production of timber; the third (cattle) supports, among other things, a flourishing butter industry. Mineral resources are modest (peat). Industry allowed for limited exports (cellulose, paper, and matches), but the trade balance before the war closed with a more or less notable deficit. Latvia’s integration into the Soviet economy has certainly decisively altered its characteristics, but nothing precise is known.