Kaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the largest city and the centre of a county in the Duchy of Trakai of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Trakai Palatinate since 1413. In the Russian Empire, it was the capital of the Kaunas Governorate from 1843 to 1915.
Image: Kauno senamiestis by Augustas Didzgalvis
Image: Kaunas Castle, Lithuania
Image: House of Perkūnas, Kaunas, Lithuania Diliff
Image: Kauno rotuse 2006 06 11
Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. It borders Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and Russia to the southwest, with a maritime border with Sweden to the west. Lithuania covers an area of 65,300 km2 (25,200 sq mi), with a population of 2.86 million. Its capital and largest city is Vilnius; other major cities are Kaunas, Klaipėda, Šiauliai and Panevėžys. Lithuanians belong to the ethnolinguistic group of the Balts and speak Lithuanian, one of only a few living members of the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family, which is also the most widely spoken language of the branch.
Lithuania's name in writing (Litua, on line 7), 1009
Baltic amber was once a valuable trade resource. It was transported from the region of modern-day Lithuania to the Roman Empire and Egypt through the Amber Road.
Trakai Island Castle, the former residence of the Grand Dukes and capital city of the medieval state
Battle of Grunwald and Vytautas the Great in the centre