Riga

Riga was founded in 1201 by Bishop Albert, who moved the seat of the Livonian bishopric here from Uexküll and used the settlement as a base for the crusade against the Livonians and other pagan peoples of the region. German merchants and craftsmen arrived, and in 1282 the town joined the Hanseatic League, growing rich on trade down the Daugava into Russia. For centuries its German burghers quarrelled with the Livonian Order over who controlled the city, and Rigans destroyed the Order's castle in 1484.

As the Hanseatic League declined, Riga became a prize for its neighbours. Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden took it in 1621, and it remained one of the largest cities of the Swedish crown, with much self-government, until Peter the Great's army captured it in 1710 after a siege during an outbreak of plague. Under Russia it became a major industrial and trading port, and the boom of the decades around 1900 produced the Art Nouveau apartment blocks of the centre — between 300 and 500 new buildings went up each year in 1910–13.

Riga became the capital of independent Latvia after 1918. In June 1940 the Soviet Union occupied the country, and in 1941 Nazi Germany followed; the Jewish community was forced into the Riga Ghetto, and about 25,000 Jews were murdered in the Rumbula forest on two days in November and December 1941. Soviet rule returned in 1944 with deportations and large-scale immigration. Since independence was restored in 1991, Riga has been a European capital, hosting the Eurovision Song Contest in 2003 and the NATO summit in 2006, and serving as European Capital of Culture in 2014.

For centuries Riga's leading families were Baltic Germans and German was the language of its administration, and the Soviet decades brought many immigrant workers; in 2017 ethnic Latvians made up about 44 per cent of its residents, and Latvian and Russian are both heard on the streets. The city is the country's cultural centre. The National Opera and Ballet, the organ concerts in the cathedral and a steady calendar of classical music draw audiences through the winter, and the old town fills with visitors in summer.

Singing is central to Latvian identity, and Riga is the stage for the Song and Dance Festival, held almost always here since 1873, normally every five years, with tens of thousands of singers and dancers taking part. In 2014 the city hosted the World Choir Games alongside its year as European Capital of Culture. Midsummer, Jāņi, with its bonfires and wreaths, is celebrated on 23 and 24 June.

Ice hockey and basketball are followed closely: Riga hosted the men's ice hockey world championships in 2006, 2021 and 2023 and the final stages of EuroBasket 2025. The Riga Marathon has been run every year since 1991. Manners are reserved, and people generally respect others' personal space.

About 590,000 people lived in Riga in 2026, roughly a third of Latvia's population, and the wider metropolitan area held an estimated 850,000 in 2025. The city has shrunk from just over 900,000 in 1991, and Vilnius has recently overtaken it as the largest Baltic city. Many Russian-speaking residents who arrived in the Soviet era were not automatically granted citizenship after 1991, an issue that still shapes local politics.

Riga is the centre of the national economy: government, information and communication technologies, business services, manufacturing, tourism and the port, whose cargo turnover had fallen by half by 2024, largely because trade with Russia shrank after the war in Ukraine and the sanctions that followed. More than 1.1 million international tourists visited in 2024. The Rail Baltica railway, a standard-gauge line meant to connect Tallinn and Warsaw through Riga, is expected around 2030, with a station planned at the airport.

Many Rigans live in apartment buildings and get around by tram, trolleybus, bus or car. The city has had a mayor from The Progressives, Viesturs Kleinbergs, since June 2025. Summer weekends pull people out to the coast and to country houses; winters are spent indoors, in cafés and concert halls.

Riga eats like most European capitals, but its markets and older cafés keep Latvian food in view. Dark rye bread, rupjmaize, made from coarse rye flour, malt and caraway seeds, is the staple; cottage cheese, biezpiens, is eaten with boiled potatoes, lightly salted herring, spring onions and sour cream. Speķrauši, buns filled with finely cut streaky bacon and onion, are a popular pastry, and grey peas with bacon are a traditional favourite, especially at Christmas.

Soviet decades left their mark on the menu: pelmeni (pelmeņi) with sour cream, dressed herring (siļķe kažokā), shashlik, solyanka and plov are as familiar here as in Moscow. In spring and summer cold borscht, made with kefir or soured milk, boiled beets, cucumber, radish, egg and herbs, turns bowls bright pink. Rye bread soup, maizes zupa, made from rye bread with whipped cream, dried fruit and cranberries, is a traditional dessert.

The Central Market, in its Zeppelin-hangar pavilions, is the city's larder, with its meat, fish, and fruit and vegetable halls. Beer is the most consumed alcoholic drink, with a flourishing craft scene, and kvass, brewed from fermented rye bread, remains popular. Riga Black Balsam, a dark, bitter herbal liqueur, is often called the national drink.