Countries
Key facts
- Capital
- Riga
- Region
- Europe, Northern Europe
- Population
- 1,847,785 (2025)
- Area
- 64,589 km²
- Currency
- euro (EUR)
- Languages
- Latvian, Russian, Lithuanian
- Calling code
- +371
- Internet domain
- .lv
- ISO codes
- LV, LVA, 428
- Time zone
- UTC+2:00
- United Nations
- Member state
- Postal code pattern
- LV-#### (# = digit, @ = letter)
Land and position
Latvia covers about 64,589 square kilometres. By area it ranks 126th among the 250 countries and territories on this site. It is a little smaller than Lithuania and a little larger than Svalbard and Jan Mayen. It shares a land border with 4 neighbours: Belarus, Estonia, Lithuania, Russia. Its centre lies at about 57° north, 25° east, in the northern hemisphere.
Neighbours
People
About 1.85 million people live in Latvia (World Bank, 2025). That makes it the 151st most populous of the 246 places on this site with a figure. On average there are 29 people to each square kilometre. About 69 percent of people live in towns and cities (World Bank, 2025). A baby born there can expect to live about 76 years (World Bank, 2024). Languages listed for it: Latvian, Russian, Lithuanian. A person from Latvia is called Latvian.
Money and economy
The currency is the euro (code EUR, symbol €). It is also the main currency of Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland and 28 more. The World Bank puts the size of its economy (GDP) at about US$ 48.6 billion (2025), which is about US$ 26,312 for each person (2025).
Time
Latvia uses one time zone, UTC+2:00 (Europe/Riga). Clocks are moved for daylight saving time in part of the year.
Time now: loading
Offsets are for January 2026. See Time Zones for a converter.
Largest cities
| City | People |
|---|---|
| Riga | 742,572 |
| Daugavpils | 78,126 |
| Liepāja | 67,421 |
| Jelgava | 54,834 |
| Jūrmala | 52,001 |
| Ventspils | 32,723 |
City figures are from GeoNames and count the city itself, not the wider urban area. They can be some years old, so use them to see the order of size.
More in Northern Europe
Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland, Guernsey, Iceland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Jersey. See the whole region.
Figures were collected on 11 November 2026 from the World Bank, GeoNames and the open countries data set. See About and data sources. Borders and names follow those sources and do not express any view on disputed territory.