Situated in western Latvia, Courland roughly corresponds to the former Latvian districts of Kuldīga, Liepāja, Saldus, Talsi, Tukums and Ventspils.

When combined with Semigallia and Selonia, Courland's northeastern boundary is the Daugava River, which separates it from the regions of Latgale and Vidzeme.

The interior features wooded dunes, covered with pine, spruce, birch, and oak, with swamps and lakes, and fertile patches between.

The Brethren of the Sword, a German Catholic military order, subdued the Curonians and converted them to Christianity in the first quarter of the 13th century.

In 1863, the Russian authorities issued laws to enable Latvians, who formed the bulk of the population, to acquire the farms which they held, and special banks were founded to help them.

By this means, some occupants bought their farms, but the great mass of the population remained landless, and lived as hired labourers, occupying a low position in the social scale.

64,500 in 1897); Bauska (6,543); Jaunjelgava (Friedrichstadt) (5,223); Kuldīga (Goldingen) (9,733); Grobiņa (1,489); Aizpute (Hasenpoth) (3,338); Ilūkste (Illuxt) (2,340); Talsi (Talsen) (6,215); Tukums (Tuckum) (7542); and Ventspils (Windau) (7,132).

During World War I, Courland formed part of the Eastern Front theatre of operations that saw fighting primarily between forces of the Russian and German Empires.

Following Russia's Great Retreat of 1915, Courland came under the control of the Imperial German Army's Ober Ost commander in the person of Paul von Hindenburg, a Prussian military hero.

With the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of 3 March 1918, the new Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic formally relinquished control of Courland to Germany.

On 18 November 1918, Latvia proclaimed its independence and on 7 December 1918, the German military handed over authority to the pro-German Latvian Provisional Government headed by Kārlis Ulmanis.

Latvia eventually signed a cease-fire with Germany on 15 July 1920, and the Latvian–Soviet Peace Treaty of 11 August ended the war.

On 5 August 1940, the Soviet Union annexed the region along with the rest of Latvia which was made a constituent republic of the USSR, the Latvian SSR.

At the start of Operation Barbarossa in the summer of 1941, the German Wehrmacht's Army Group North headed by Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb overran Courland, along with the rest of the Baltic littoral.

Colonel-General Heinz Guderian, the Chief of the German General Staff, pleaded with Adolf Hitler to allow evacuation of the troops in Courland by sea for use in the defense of Germany.

Hitler refused and ordered the Wehrmacht, Waffen-SS, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine forces in Courland to continue the defense of the area.

After May 9, 1945, approximately 203,000 troops of Army Group Courland began to be moved to Soviet prison camps to the east.