It is the capital of Telšiai County and Samogitia region, and it is located on the shores of Lake Mastis.

The name Telšiai is a variant of the same Lithuanian language root (-telš-, -tilž-) as Tilžė or Talsi with the meaning connected to water.

The name Telšiai or Telšē in Samogitian dialect of Lithuanian is derived from a verb telkšoti (literally, to be flooded with water, to splash, etc.).

It may also relate to the sum of 45° longitude of Greenwich as the core of Europe or also all western side or one fourth in the West of The Eastern Hemisphere.

Some foreign names for the city include Latvian: Telši; German: Telschen, Telschi; Polish: Telsze; Russian: Тельшяй, Тельши, Тяльшяй.

In English sources, Telšiai are known also by several alternative names, including Telsiai, Telshi and Telschi.

The city was named after a small rivulet, the Telšė, which flows into Lake Mastis.

First mentions of Telšiai date back to 1398,[2] but the oldest archeological findings in the area of the city are from the Stone Age.

Local parliaments known as Sejmiks composed of noblemen were organised in the city and a court was established.

[4][5] The city survived two Polish revolutions, was conquered by the Germans in World War I, and occupied by the Red Army for a short time in 1918.

During the first Soviet occupation, as a result of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Telšiai became infamous for the nearby Rainiai massacre, a mass murder of 76 Lithuanian political prisoners perpetrated by the Red Army during the night of 24–25 June 1941.

A major source of income was the famous Telšiai Yeshiva, (a school for Talmudic study, sometimes called a rabbinical college).

It was the largest and most famous yeshiva in Lithuania between 1875 and 1941, establishing Telšiai as a center of Torah studies (the entire body of religious law and learning, including both sacred literature and oral tradition).

There were also charitable institutions, including a Chevra Kadisha (burial society), a hospital, a loan society, a public kitchen, a clinic, special summer camps, and a women's association for support of the sick and poor.

In June 1940, following the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, Russians quickly closed down the yeshiva.

Learning was done in groups of 20–25 students studying in various batai medrashim ("small synagogues") led by the rosh yeshivas.

The Holocaust in Telšiai (in Yiddish Telz) was carried out by the local Lithuanian leadership with occasional supervision by Nazi German units.

Jews were subjected to terror by the Germans and their Lithuanian collaborators and on 15–16 July all Jewish men were shot.

The 500–600 young women were moved back to a ghetto in Telšiai, and with the exception of some escapees, were shot on 30–31 December 1941.

This yeshiva again became a well-respected center of Talmudic study, incorporating the distinct methods of the historic institution, and it is still going strong today.

Justinas Staugaitis, one of the twenty signatories to the Act of Independence of Lithuania, became the first bishop of the diocese.

It was closed in 1946 after the occupation of Lithuania by the Soviet Union but re-established at the end of the Cold War.

Museum visitors can also get acquainted with a windmill, smithy, threshing barn and associated equipment.

[18] The main newspaper in the city and the region of Telšiai is Kalvotoji Žemaitija (Hilly Samogitia), which was established on 19 April 1941.

The nearby Šatrija hill and hillfort is cultural monument and part of a nature preserve.

Telšiai city eldership has six sub-elderships, whose purpose is to represent communities of inhabited places.

[29] In September 2012 it was announced that according to the data of the Lithuanian Department of Statistics the average salary of Lithuania grew the most rapidly in Telšiai in the second quarter of 2012.

The team finished third in 2016–2017 National Basketball League regular season but lost in the quarter-finals.

One year after in 2019 Telšiai qualified to the League's playoffs and finished third winning bronze medals for the first time in club's history.

According to the 2021 census, the city population was 22,642 people, of which:[36] Telšiai is twinned with:[37] In chronological order by their birth year: