Lithuania (/ˌlɪθjuˈeɪniə/ ( listen);[11] Lithuanian: Lietuva [lʲɪɛtʊˈvɐ]), officially the Republic of

Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos Respublika), is a country in the Baltic region of northern-

eastern Europe. Since its independence, Lithuania has been referred to as one of the Baltic states.
It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, to the east of Sweden and Denmark.
It is bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and
Kaliningrad Oblast (a Russian exclave) to the southwest. Lithuania has an estimated population
of 2.8 million people as of 2017, and its capital and largest city is Vilnius. Other major cities are
Kaunas and Klaipėda. Lithuanians are a Baltic people. The official language, Lithuanian, along
with Latvian, is one of only two living languages in the Baltic branch of the Indo-European
language family.

For centuries, the southeastern shores of the Baltic Sea were inhabited by various Baltic tribes. In
the 1230s, the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, the King of Lithuania, and the first
unified Lithuanian state, the Kingdom of Lithuania, was created on 6 July 1253. During the 14th
century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the largest country in Europe; present-day Lithuania,
Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia were the territories of the Grand Duchy. With
the Lublin Union of 1569, Lithuania and Poland formed a voluntary two-state union, the Polish–
Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth lasted more than two centuries, until
neighbouring countries systematically dismantled it from 1772 to 1795, with the Russian Empire
annexing most of Lithuania's territory.