It covers a area of 9.9 square kilometres (3.8 sq mi) and has a population of 31,097 (according to the 2011 census).

Since the 1950s, the Baltic states experienced fast population growth and faced housing shortages.

When Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev put forth his program of fast residential construction, based on prefabricated panel buildings dubbed khrushchovkas, it threatened the integrity of the well-preserved historical style of Vilnius.

The chosen area was close to a Polish village of Leszczyniaki or Lazdynai in Lithuanian,[2] situated southeast of old Vilnius.

Initially the authorities monitored the project with suspicion, but eventually it was accepted, and in 1974 the leading figures of the Lazdynai project (architects Vytautas Čekanauskas, Vytautas Brėdikis [lt], Vytautas Balčiūnas [lt], and Gediminas Valiuškis and engineers Algimantas Kleinotas [lt] and Vincentas Šileika) were awarded the Lenin Prize in architecture.