Vidzeme
Vidzeme (German Livonia ) is a region in Latvia . The Latvian name comes from the words "vidus" ( German middle ) and "zeme" ( earth, land ), so it means "Middle Earth" or "Mittelland". Historically, Vidzeme lies roughly in the middle of the former Livonian Confederation , which stretched to the Gulf of Finland in the north and Lithuania in the south and which completely covered the areas of today's Estonia and Latvia. Vidzeme is one of the four regions named in the Latvian Constitution .
If Livonia is spoken of from a current perspective , it usually refers to the current region of Vidzeme. Before that, at the time of the Livonia Governorate , the landscape north of Riga to Lake Peipus was understood as Livonia, which corresponds territorially to the Latvian region of Vidzeme together with today's southern half of Estonia.
Vidzeme is bordered to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the north by Estonia , to the east and southeast by Latgale (Latvian Latgale ) and to the south by Semgallen ( Zemgale ) and Oberlettland ( Augšzeme ). Vidzeme corresponds to the 9 administrative districts Limbaži , Valmiera , Valka , Alūksne , Gulbene , Madona , Cēsis , Ogre and Rīga . With a total area of around 23,000 km² , Vidzeme takes up around 35% of the area of Latvia.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ DB of the Latvian Statistics Office ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. here: Administrative Territorial Division and Population Density
Coordinates: 57 ° 20 ′ 0 ″ N , 25 ° 37 ′ 0 ″ E