Geography of Latvia: Gentle Highlands, Fertile Plains, and Baltic Shores

Published on April 27, 2026 and written by Cyril Jarnias

Latvia’s geography is both discreet and spectacular. Discreet, because the territory has neither high mountains nor extreme deserts. Spectacular, because an interweaving of plains, glacial hills, thousands of rivers and lakes, dense forests, and 500 kilometers of Baltic coastline creates a landscape of rare coherence on a European scale. To understand this country, you must first follow its very low horizons, its wooded dunes, its silent peat bogs, and its great rivers that end their course in the Gulf of Riga.

A Baltic Country at the Heart of Northern Europe

Latvia is located in northeastern Europe, on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. It occupies a crossroads position between the Nordic region, the Eastern Slavic world, and Central Europe. The country is wedged between four land neighbors – Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, Russia to the east, Belarus to the southeast – and shares a maritime border with Sweden across the Baltic.

Good to know:

The Estonian territory extends approximately between 55°40′ and 58° north latitude, and between 21° and 29° east longitude. Its geographic center (about 57°N, 25°E) lies in the East European Plain. This position explains a moderate relief, with no mountain ranges, and gentle landscape transitions.

With about 64,500 km², Latvia is larger than several Western European states such as Belgium, the Netherlands, or Switzerland. The territory stretches roughly 210 km from north to south, and nearly 450 km from west to east. But this apparent vast rectangle proves, on the ground, anything but uniform.

Relief: A Largely Flat but Subtly Sculpted Country

At first glance, Latvia’s geography seems summed up in one word: plain. About 98% of the territory lies below 200 meters in altitude, and there are no mountain chains to speak of. Yet this apparent horizontality hides a relief finely shaped by glaciations.

Three Main Units: Uplands in the West and East, Central Depression

The Quaternary glaciers divided the country into three main ensembles: the morainic highlands of the West and East, and a broad depression in the center, sometimes called the “Middle Lowlands.” Rolling plains cover about 75% of the territory, while more pronounced reliefs – hills, morainic plateaus – represent about a quarter of the surface.

A few major ensembles stand out clearly:

– the Kurzeme Uplands in the west,

– the Vidzeme Uplands and the Alūksne Plateau in the north-central,

– the Latgale Heights in the east,

– and, in the hollow, the Zemgale Plain south of Riga, the agricultural heart of the country.

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This is the elevation in meters of Latvia’s highest point, Gaiziņkalns, which locally influences the climate and landscapes.

A quick glance at the geographic extremes shows the limited but very real amplitude of the territory:

In the most hilly regions, like the Vidzeme Uplands, average elevations exceed 200 meters, enough to create microclimates: earlier snow, longer winter, slightly lower temperatures than in the plains. These hills now host ski slopes, notably at Gaiziņkalns or Ķauķu kalns near Alūksne, proof that even a “mountain” of 300 meters can dominate the local landscape.

Gaiziņkalns: Modest Summit but Strategic Site

Gaiziņkalns perfectly illustrates how Latvia’s geography blends relief, heritage, and science. This hill, about one kilometer long and 650 meters wide, lies in Gaiziņkalns Nature Park, within the Vestiena Protected Landscape Area. The site is not just a high point: it contains ancient necropolises, old paths, domain boundaries, and above all, a point of the famous Struve Geodetic Arc, a 19th-century triangulation system inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

Example:

At the summit of Vällamägi, light developments (ski slopes, accommodations, ridge trail) have been made. A tower was even built there to artificially surpass the height of the neighboring Estonian mountain, Suur Munamägi, before being demolished for safety reasons. This example illustrates how human constructions interact with natural relief and underscores the symbolic importance of even modest elevations in regional identity.

A Maritime Front of Sand, Cliffs, and Capes

The Baltic Sea coastline is one of the strong markers of Latvia’s geography. The coast stretches for nearly 500 km, according to sources between 494 and just over 500 kilometers, with long sandy beaches, wooded dunes, and some spectacular rocky or sandy cliff sections. About 300 km of this coastline remained largely untouched for a long time, as it was turned into a strictly controlled border zone during the Soviet era. Even today, legislation severely limits construction within one kilometer of the shore, protecting vast stretches of dunes and coastal forests.

The coastline is characterized by great diversity of forms: long white sand beaches at Jūrmala, sandy cliffs of Jūrkalne up to twenty meters high subject to rapid erosion, pebble and rounded boulder shores near Kaltene or Salacgrīva, red sandstone cliffs on the Vidzeme coast, and ancient dunes covered with pine forests in Slītere National Park.

Attention:

The Gulf of Riga, wide and shallow, creates a more continental microclimate than the rest of the Baltic. At Cape Kolka, a sandbank in northwestern Kurzeme, the waves of the gulf and those of the open Baltic Sea meet at a right angle, offering a unique spectacle of two water masses converging within the same sea.

Legally, Latvia exercises sovereignty over a territorial sea of 12 nautical miles and an exclusive economic zone of more than 28,000 km², about one-tenth of the total area of the Baltic Sea. The continental shelf, shallow, descends to about 200 meters in depth, which, combined with the almost enclosed nature of the Baltic and the strong freshwater inflow, gives a low-salinity sea with fragile ecosystems.

Rivers and Lakes: A Hydrographic Network of Exceptional Density

Latvia’s geography is inseparable from its inland waters. The country is sometimes described as one of the richest in water in Europe, with over 12,000 rivers and more than 3,000 lakes. Figures vary slightly by source, but the order of magnitude remains impressive: more than 38,000 km of watercourses, the vast majority being small streams under 10 km. Only 17 rivers exceed 100 km.

The Great River Arteries

Five rivers structure the hydrography:

– the Daugava, a true historical backbone,

– the Gauja, the longest entirely Latvian river,

– the Lielupe, artery of the fertile Zemgale plain,

– the Venta, a Kurzeme river flowing into the Baltic,

– the Salaca, which connects the eastern lakes to the Gulf of Riga.

A quick table helps situate the main watercourses:

The Daugava, which rises in the Valdai Hills in Russia, crosses Belarus and then Latvia before emptying into the Gulf of Riga. It is both a historical transport route, an energy resource – three large hydroelectric dams have been built on it – and a strong cultural marker. Its width, about 200 meters upstream, reaches nearly 700 meters at Riga. The construction of the Ķegums, Pļaviņas, and Riga dams has profoundly altered the middle course landscape, submerging iconic sites such as the Staburags cliff, now lost beneath a reservoir.

The Gauja winds through one of the country’s most spectacular landscapes: the Gauja Primeval Valley, carved up to 85 meters deep near Sigulda, a record for the Baltic states. Its red sandstone cliffs, entrenched meanders, springs, caves, and dense forests have inspired writers and painters, and given birth to Latvia’s oldest national park.

The Gauja Valley

The Venta, finally, offers at Kuldīga the widest natural waterfall curtain in Europe: the Ventas Rumba waterfall, about a hundred meters wide, sometimes more depending on water level. At certain times, migratory fish take advantage of the turbulence to “jump” the obstacle, a phenomenon that has long fueled local imagination.

A Mosaic of Lakes, Especially in the East

Lakes, often formed by glacial action, occupy about 1,000 km² of the territory. The Latgale region in the southeast is nicknamed the “land of lakes”: water surfaces are so numerous that many hills offer simultaneous views of several bodies of water. Lake Rāznas is sometimes called the “sea of Latgale,” while Lake Ežezers is distinguished by its multitude of wooded islets.

The Great Lakes in Numbers

Some data illustrating the importance and vastness of the Great Lakes of North America.

Total Area

The five Great Lakes cover an area of about 244,000 km², forming the largest surface freshwater system in the world.

Freshwater Volume

They contain about 21% of the world’s liquid surface freshwater, nearly 23,000 km³.

Shoreline

Their combined shoreline stretches nearly 17,000 kilometers, longer than the east coast of the United States.

Riverside Population

More than 30 million people live in the Great Lakes basin, depending on this resource for drinking water, transportation, and the economy.

Alongside these large bodies of water, there are more than 2,200 lakes over one hectare, and a myriad of small ponds. Many are eutrophic, meaning rich in nutrients and aquatic vegetation, forming highly productive habitats for waterfowl. Several coastal lakes – Engure, Pape, Kaņieris – are former lagoons separated from the sea by sand bars, now paradises for ornithologists.

Overall, renewable water resources exceed 35 km³ per year, or about 20,000 m³ per inhabitant, a record in the European Union. But more than 60% of the flow of the major rivers actually originates in neighboring countries, making water quality dependent on upstream practices, as sadly recalled by a serious cyanide pollution coming from Belarus on the Daugava in 1990.

Climate: Between Atlantic Influence and Continental Temperament

Latvia’s geography, relatively flat and open to the sea, gives the climate a temperate character, of the humid continental type with maritime nuances on the coast. The country experiences four distinct seasons of roughly equal length.

Atlantic air masses, moderated by the Gulf Stream, penetrate widely via the Baltic, especially on the Kurzeme peninsula and the western coast. The further east you go, the more continentality asserts itself: colder winters, sometimes hotter summers, more pronounced temperature ranges.

Some thermal benchmarks illustrate this transition:

Across the country, winters generally begin around mid-December and last until mid-March. Snow covers the ground continuously for nearly three months, longer in the Vidzeme highlands. Cold waves from Russia or the Arctic can push the thermometer below -20 °C, even far lower, as evidenced by a record -43.2 °C recorded in Daugavpils.

Tip:

Latvian summers, from June to August, are generally moderate with average temperatures around 17–19 °C. However, short heat waves from the southeast can push the mercury above 30 °C. The absolute heat record in Latvia, 37.8 °C, was recorded in Ventspils, on the country’s west coast.

Precipitation, around 600 to 700 mm per year depending on the region, is fairly evenly distributed, with a summer maximum inland (late-day thunderstorms) and an autumn peak on the coast. The sky is often cloudy: in Riga, there are barely 70 truly sunny days per year, compared to about 180 days of rain or snow and about forty days of fog.

The Baltic Sea, almost enclosed, remains cold for much of the year: near 1 °C in the Gulf of Riga in winter, rarely above 18 °C in summer. The gulf generally freezes, while the major open Baltic ports like Liepāja and Ventspils usually remain ice-free.

Forests, Peat Bogs, and Agricultural Land: A Highly Contrasted Land Use

One of the most striking features of Latvia’s geography is the enormous share occupied by wooded areas. According to sources and years, between half and more than 55% of the territory is covered by forests, placing Latvia among the most forested countries in the European Union. This forest area has actually doubled in a century, partly due to the abandonment of marginal agricultural land.

Land of Pines, Birches, and Peat Bogs

The dominant species – Scots pine, birch, spruce – make up nearly 80% of forests. Pine dominates on sandy soils, especially along the coast and in some interior plains; spruce is more common in cooler, wetter uplands, while birch mosaics readily colonize old fields, especially in Latgale. Oaks and lindens, rarer, nevertheless hold important symbolic status, to the point of being designated national trees.

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Nearly 70% of Latvia’s peat bogs are virtually intact, playing a crucial role in carbon storage, water regulation, and biodiversity.

Latvian forests produce about 25 million m³ of wood annually, but removals are around 12–13 million m³, theoretically leaving room for stock growth. Wood and wood products are among the country’s main exports.

Zemgale, the Great Grain Plain

Facing this forest dominance, cultivated land is mainly concentrated in one great central plain: Zemgale, south of Riga. This depression oriented toward the Gulf of Riga, with silty and clayey soils inherited from an ancient glacial lake, constitutes the main agricultural region. Cereals, fodder crops, orchards, and improved meadows create a landscape of open fields interspersed with groves, tree lines, and riparian forests.

18000

Total area classified as agricultural land in France, representing nearly a third of the national territory.

The uplands – Kurzeme, Vidzeme, Latgale – are less suited for intensive large-scale farming, due to slopes, stony or wet soils, and fragmented relief. They feature more mosaics of small plots, meadows, orchards, and woodlands, with an even more pronounced gradient in the “land of lakes” of Latgale, where compact villages, wooden houses, churches, old manor houses, and pastures form a highly legible cultural landscape.

A Regional Mosaic: Kurzeme, Zemgale, Vidzeme, Latgale

Latvia’s geography is often described through four historical regions: Kurzeme in the west, Zemgale in the south-central, Vidzeme in the north-central, and Latgale in the east-southeast. Each has a specific landscape identity, linked to its relief, hydrology, and history.

Kurzeme: Peninsula of Dunes, Cliffs, and Deep Valleys

Kurzeme, or Courland, occupies the entire western facade, between the open Baltic and the Gulf of Riga. Its peninsula is bordered by long beaches, rocky coasts, and ancient dunes covered with pine and spruce forests. Slītere National Park protects a spectacular system of parallel dunes formed about 6,000 years ago, separated by marshy depressions.

Example:

The Abava Primeval Valley, located inland, cuts through the relief between two plateaus. This corridor is characterized by its meadows, waterfalls, and oak forests, and is dotted with archaeological sites, ruined castles, and small towns like Sabile, famous for its northern vineyards. Further north, the city of Kuldīga developed along the Venta, precisely where the river forms the Ventas Rumba waterfall.

The port cities of Ventspils and Liepāja complete this picture, with their ice-free ports, fine sandy beaches, and role as major maritime gateways of the country.

Zemgale: The Country’s “Salt Cellar,” Great Fertile Plain

Zemgale, once nicknamed the “salt of the country” for its agricultural wealth, offers very open horizons: large cereal fields, orchards, groves, tree lines along roads and paths, gallery forests in river valleys. The Lielupe River, formed by the confluence of the Mūsa and Mēmele near Bauska, is its central axis, with a network of channels and secondary branches that have long shaped floods and soils.

Good to know:

The fertile plain attracted the nobility, who built remarkable structures like Rundāle Palace and Bauska Castle. Beyond its agricultural productivity, this region is also a setting of Baroque ensembles and landscapes celebrated in Latvian literature.

Vidzeme: Hills, Deep Valleys, and Forests

Vidzeme occupies the north-central part of the country, between the Daugava and the Estonian border. It is the most hilly region, with the Vidzeme Uplands, the Alūksne Hills, and the numerous entrenched valleys of the Gauja, Amata, or Salaca. Villages are often perched on well-exposed slopes, fields follow the contours of the relief, and lakes dot the lowlands.

The Gauja valley, near Sigulda and Cēsis, concentrates much of the geological appeal: sandstone cliffs in shades of red, yellow, or white, caves, natural arches like those at Līču–Laņģu, ferruginous or sulfur springs. Viewpoints – Ķeizarskats, Turaida, Ērgļu klintis – offer panoramas where the river meanders and terrace sequences are clearly visible.

Good to know:

Winter in Vidzeme is harsher than in the neighboring plains, with snow possibly persisting until May on the heights. The region has developed as a snow tourism center on a Baltic scale, thanks to numerous winter sports facilities.

Latgale: Land of Lakes and Gentle Hills

In the east, Latgale stands out for its exceptional density of glacial lakes, with complex shapes, sometimes dotted with islets like Lake Ežezers. The morainic hills, less high than in Vidzeme but very present, alternate with waters, creating a highly fragmented landscape, conducive to panoramic viewpoints. From Mākoņkalns hill, one overlooks Lake Rāznas and a checkerboard of fields, villages, and woods.

The region is less forested than the national average, having long been more intensively cultivated; villages are more compact, wooden houses clustered around churches, manor houses, and old estates. Several Latgale lakes, including Drīdzis, hold depth records for the Baltic states.

A Largely Protected Nature: National Parks, Reserves, Natura 2000

Latvia’s geography is also a geography of protection. More than 700 natural territories have a special status, covering about 18 to 20% of the land area and more than 16% of territorial waters. These zones fall into various categories: four national parks, one biosphere reserve, nature reserves, nature parks, protected landscapes, strict nature reserves, natural monuments, micro-reserves for rare species, and seven marine protected areas.

The four national parks play a structuring role:

Example:

Latvia has four national parks, each representative of a geographic region and distinct ecosystem: Gauja National Park (Vidzeme), the oldest and largest, centered on the eponymous valley; Ķemeri National Park (Zemgale / Gulf of Riga coast), famous for its great peat bog, lagoon lakes, and therapeutic springs; Slītere National Park (Kurzeme), protecting fossil dunes, coastal forests, and bird migration passage areas; and Rāzna National Park (Latgale), encompassing the country’s second largest lake and a landscape of hills and forests.

In addition to these large ensembles, there are a multitude of more specific sites: sandstone cliffs (Veczemju, Ērgļu, Zvārtes), giant boulders like the Nicgale rock, spectacular dunes like the White Dune at the mouth of the Lielupe, or mysterious ponds like the “Devil’s Lake” (Velnezers) where fauna and flora are strangely scarce.

Natural Resources: Abundance of Wood, Peat, and Stone, Scarcity of Minerals

From a strictly mineral standpoint, Latvia has no major strategic deposits. Its resources are rather “commonplace”: limestone, dolomite, gypsum, clays, gravels and sands, peat. However, reserves are far from negligible: about 6 billion m³ of limestone, more than 600 million m³ of dolomite, several hundred million m³ of clay and gypsum, nearly half a billion tons of peat.

These fossil resins, carried by waves and deposited on Kurzeme beaches or in some coastal lakes, have fueled trade routes to southern Europe since antiquity.

Amber, nicknamed “Baltic Gold”

Wood, on the other hand, constitutes a major resource, both for the economy and for the energy transition. Added to this is a hydropower potential already largely exploited, especially on the Daugava, and fishery resources in the Baltic (herring, sprats, cod…), even if the state of the sea requires careful management.

Coasts, Cities, and Urban Landscapes: The Human Imprint on Geography

The maritime facade is dotted with ports and seaside resorts that have responded to the physical constraints of the coastline. The major ports of Riga, Ventspils, and Liepāja were established in sheltered bays or at the mouths of large rivers, where depth, protection from ice, and land access combine best.

Good to know:

Riga, the largest city in the Baltic states, is situated on a sandy plain at low altitude (1 to 10 m) at the mouth of the Daugava. This position has historically made it vulnerable to flooding. Urban expansion has integrated river islands (Ķīpsala, Zaķusala, Kundziņsala) into its urban and port fabric.

Liepāja, the country’s third city, nestles between the sea and a large coastal lake, benefiting from a channel providing access to an ice-free port. Ventspils, further north, combines a modern industrial port with a Blue Flag beach. Jūrmala, finally, stretches like an urban ribbon over more than 20 km along a bright beach, sandwiched between the Baltic and the Lielupe.

These settlements show how much Latvia’s geography – estuaries, bays, coastal bars, ancient lagoons – durably structures the distribution of cities, economic activities, and leisure areas.

A Fragile but Resilient Geography

The entire territory remains marked by a delicate balance between natural environments and human uses. The low plains of the Daugava or Lielupe are exposed to floods and ice jams; the sandy cliffs of Jūrkalne recede several meters per year under the effect of marine erosion; peat bogs, drained for agriculture or peat extraction, sometimes lose their carbon storage capacity. Urbanization of some coastal sectors and intensified logging also pressure biodiversity.

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Latvia’s moderate population density, about 30 inhabitants per km², contributes to the exceptional preservation of its natural environments.

Ultimately, Latvia’s geography reads like a palimpsest: that of successive glaciations that shaped plains, hills, and lakes; that of the great rivers that guided trade routes and city locations; and that, finally, of a society that built its landscapes – agricultural, forest, and coastal – by adapting its uses to the constraints of a gentle relief, a temperate but demanding climate, and a fragile sea. Between coastal dunes, deep forests, modest hills, and omnipresent waters, the Latvian territory thus composes a sober geography, but of remarkable coherence.

Cyril Jarnias

Cyril Jarnias is an independent expert in international wealth management with over 20 years of experience. As an expatriate himself, he is dedicated to helping individuals and business leaders build, protect, and pass on their wealth with complete peace of mind.

On his website, cyriljarnias.com, he shares his expertise on international real estate, offshore company formation, and expatriation.

Thanks to his expertise, he offers sound advice to optimize his clients' wealth management. Cyril Jarnias is also recognized for his appearances in many prestigious media outlets such as BFM Business, les Français de l’étranger, Le Figaro, Les Echos, and Mieux vivre votre argent, where he shares his knowledge and know-how in wealth management.

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