Throughout centuries, Samogitia developed a separate culture featuring diverse architecture, folk costumes, dances, songs, traditions, and a distinct Samogitian language.

Ruthenian sources mentioned the region as жемотьская земля, Žemot'skaja zemlja; this gave rise to its Polish form, Żmudź, and probably to the Middle High German Sameiten, Samaythen.

The major cities are: Samogitia is bordered by Lithuania Minor in the south-west, Suvalkija in the south-east, Aukštaitija in the east, and Semigallia and Courland in the north.

After World War II, the territory of the western subdialect was resettled mainly by northern and southern Žemaičiai and by other Lithuanians.

Samogitian has a broken intonation ("laužtinė priegaidė", a variant of a start-firm accent) similar to that of the Latvian language.

During the first part of the 19th century, Žemaitija was a major center of Lithuanian culture (Žemaičiai traditionally tended to oppose any anti-Lithuanian restrictions).

The territory of ancient Samogitia was much larger than current ethnographic or "dialectological" Žemaitija and embraced all of central and western Lithuania.

The original subethnic Samogitia, i.e. Central Lithuania's flat burial grounds culture, was formed as early as the 5th-6th centuries.

Since Žemaitija was the last pagan region in Europe left to be invaded and christened, the Teutonic Order set their sights on this last mission.

Despite all their effort, the Žemaičiai managed to defend their lands until 1410 decisive Battle of Grunwald or Žalgiris, where united Polish-Lithuanian forces defeated the Teutonic Order and ended their crusading era.

First of all, you made and announced a decision about the land of Samogitia, which is our inheritance and our homeland from the legal succession of the ancestors and elders.

In 1883, Edmund Veckenstedt published a book Die Mythen, Sagen und Legenden der Zamaiten (Litauer) (English: The myths, sagas and legends of the Samogitians (Lithuanians)).

During World War II, Lithuania was first occupied by the Stalinist Soviet Union in 1940, then in 1941 by Nazi Germany, and in 1944 again by the USSR.

The coat of arms depicts a black bear with silver claws and a collar on a red shield topped with a crown.

The greater arms are supported by a knight with a sword and a woman with an anchor and has the motto Patria Una (Latin: One Fatherland).

[21][22][23][24][25] Because Žemaitija (Samogitia) does not correspond to any current administrative division of Lithuania, these symbols are not officially used anymore.