[18] After centuries of Teutonic, Swedish, Polish-Lithuanian, and Russian rule, the independent Republic of Latvia was established on 18 November 1918 after breaking away from the German Empire in the aftermath of World War I.

The peaceful Singing Revolution started in 1987 among the Baltic Soviet republics and ended with the restoration of both de facto and official independence on 21 August 1991.

[37][38] In Latvia, the Swedish period is generally remembered as positive; serfdom was eased, a network of schools was established for the peasantry, and the power of the regional barons was diminished.

[47] In practice, however, the emancipation was actually advantageous to the landowners and nobility, as it dispossessed peasants of their land without compensation, forcing them to return to work at the estates "of their own free will".

On 18 November 1918, in Riga, the People's Council of Latvia proclaimed the independence of the new country and Kārlis Ulmanis was entrusted to set up a government and he took the position of prime minister.

With most of Latvia's industrial base evacuated to the interior of Russia in 1915, radical land reform was the central political question for the young state.

[60] The pact contained a secret protocol, revealed only after Germany's defeat in 1945, according to which the states of Northern and Eastern Europe were divided into German and Soviet "spheres of influence".

[61] After the conclusion of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, most of the Baltic Germans left Latvia by agreement between Ulmanis's government and Nazi Germany under the Heim ins Reich programme.

By 29 June Riga was reached and with Soviet troops killed, captured or retreating, Latvia was left under the control of German forces by early July.

[citation needed] To maintain and expand industrial production, skilled workers were migrating from all over the Soviet Union, decreasing the proportion of ethnic Latvians in the republic.

The Republic of Latvia declared the end of the transitional period and restored full independence on 21 August 1991, in the aftermath of the failed Soviet coup attempt.

[87] In late 2018 the National Archives of Latvia released a full alphabetical index of some 10,000 people recruited as agents or informants by the Soviet KGB.

[111] Larger mammalian wildlife in Latvia include deer, wild boar, moose, lynx, bear, fox, beaver and wolves.

In ancient times, amber found along the Baltic Sea coast was sought by Vikings as well as traders from Egypt, Greece and the Roman Empire.

At Pape Nature Reserve, where European bison, wild horses, and recreated aurochs have been reintroduced, there is now an almost complete Holocene megafauna also including moose, deer, and wolf.

[127] In 2014 parliamentary election was won again by the ruling centre-right coalition formed by the Unity Party, the National Alliance and the Union of Greens and Farmers.

Siliņa’s government is a three-party coalition between her own New Unity (JV) party, the Greens and Farmers Union (ZZS), and the social-democratic Progressives (PRO) with total 52 of 100 seats in the parliament.

[147] In 2013 Riga hosted the annual Northern Future Forum, a two-day informal meeting of the prime ministers of the Nordic-Baltic countries and the UK.

[149] Latvia hosted the 2006 NATO Summit and since then the annual Riga Conference has become a leading foreign and security policy forum in Northern Europe.

Latvian armed forces have contributed to NATO and EU military operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1996–2009), Albania (1999), Kosovo (2000–2009), Macedonia (2003), Iraq (2005–2006), Afghanistan (since 2003), Somalia (since 2011) and Mali (since 2013).

[159] Latvia acts as the lead nation in the coordination of the Northern Distribution Network for transportation of non-lethal ISAF cargo by air and rail to Afghanistan.

Eager to join Western economic institutions like the World Trade Organization, OECD, and the European Union, Latvia signed a Europe Agreement with the EU in 1995—with a 4-year transition period.

[citation needed] The Latvian economy entered a phase of fiscal contraction during the second half of 2008 after an extended period of credit-based speculation and unrealistic appreciation in real estate values.

[202] Kenneth Orchard, senior analyst at Moody's Investors Service argued that: The strengthening regional economy is supporting Latvian production and exports, while the sharp swing in the current account balance suggests that the country's 'internal devaluation' is working.

Apart from road and railway connections, Ventspils is also linked to oil extraction fields and prior to 2022, transportation routes of Russian Federation via system of two pipelines from Polotsk, Belarus.

Latvia's ethnic diversity is a result of a number of factors, including a long history of foreign rule, its location on the Baltic Sea trade route, and its proximity to other Slavic countries.

An internal document of 18 March 1987, near the end of communist rule, spoke of an active membership that had shrunk to only 25,000 in Latvia, but the faith has since experienced a revival.

[230] Latvia has been seeking for a number of years to separate the Latvian Orthodox Church from Moscow, stating that longstanding ties to Russia pose “national security concerns”.

[242] It is among the lowest-ranked healthcare systems in Europe, due to excessive waiting times for treatment, insufficient access to the latest medicines, and other factors.

Latvia has had many famous hockey stars like Helmuts Balderis, Artūrs Irbe, Kārlis Skrastiņš and Sandis Ozoliņš and more recently Zemgus Girgensons, whom the Latvian people have strongly supported in international and NHL play, expressed through the dedication of using the NHL's All Star Voting to bring Zemgus to number one in voting.