Outline of Lithuania

[1][2] Situated along the south-eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, sharing borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of the Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest.

With the Lublin Union of 1569 Poland and Lithuania formed a new state: the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was finally destroyed by its neighboring countries in 1795.

Most of Lithuania's territory was annexed by the Russian Empire, until the Act of Independence was signed on 16 February 1918, which declared the re-establishment of a sovereign state.

When World War II was near its end in 1944 and the Nazis retreated, the Soviet Union reoccupied Lithuania.

On 11 March 1990, Lithuania became the first Baltic republic to declare its restored independence after 50 years of Soviet occupation.