Estonia

Estonia,[b] officially the Republic of Estonia,[c] is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe.[d] It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Lake Peipus and Russia. The territory of Estonia consists of the mainland, the larger islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, and over 2,300 other islands and islets on the east coast of the Baltic Sea,[12] covering a total area of 45,335 square kilometres (17,504 sq mi). Tallinn and Tartu are the two largest urban areas. The Estonian language is the official language and the first language of the majority of the population of 1.4 million.[14]

Present-day Estonia has been inhabited by humans since at least 9,000 BC. The medieval indigenous population of Estonia was one of the last pagan civilisations in Europe to adopt Christianity following the Northern Crusades in the 13th century.[22] After more than six centuries of rule by the Teutonic Order, Denmark, Sweden, and the Russian Empire, a distinct Estonian national identity began to reemerge in the mid-19th century. This culminated in the 1918 Estonian Declaration of Independence from the then-warring Russian and German empires. Democratic throughout most of the interwar period, Estonia declared neutrality at the outbreak of World War II, however the country was repeatedly contested, invaded, and occupied; first by the Soviet Union in 1940, then Nazi Germany in 1941, and ultimately reoccupied in 1944 by, and annexed into, the USSR as an administrative subunit (Estonian SSR). Throughout the 1944–91 Soviet occupation,[23] Estonia's de jure state continuity was preserved by diplomatic representatives and the government-in-exile. Following the 1988–90 "Singing Revolution" against Soviet rule, the nation's full independence was restored on 20 August 1991.

Estonia is a developed country with a high-income advanced economy. It is a democratic unitary parliamentary republic, administratively subdivided into 15 maakond (counties). It is one of the least populous members of the European Union and NATO. Estonia has consistently ranked highly in international rankings for quality of life,[24] education,[25] press freedom, digitalisation of public services[26][27] and the prevalence of technology companies.[28]