Geography of Lithuania

Geography of Lithuania

Continent	Europe
Region	Northern Europe
Coordinates	54°54′24″N 25°19′12″E / 54.90667°N 25.32000°E / 54.90667; 25.32000
Area
• Total	65,300 km2 (25,200 sq mi)
• Land	95.99%
• Water	4.01%
Coastline	262 km (163 mi)
Borders	Total land borders: 1,574 km (978 mi)
Highest point	Aukštojas Hill 294 m (965 ft)
Lowest point	Baltic Sea 0 meters
Longest river	Nemunas 917 km (570 mi)
Largest lake	Lake Drūkšiai 44.79 km2 (17.29 sq mi)
Exclusive economic zone	7,031 km2 (2,715 sq mi)

Lithuania is one of the countries in the Baltic region of Europe. The most populous of the Baltic states, Lithuania has 262 km (163 mi) of coastline consisting of the continental coast and the "Curonian Spit" coast.^[1] Lithuania's major warm-water port of Klaipėda lies at the narrow mouth of Curonian Lagoon, a shallow lagoon extending south to Kaliningrad and separated from the Baltic sea by Curonian Spit, where Kuršių Nerija National Park was established for its remarkable sand dunes.

The Neman River and some of its tributaries are used for internal shipping (in 2000, 89 inland ships carried 900,000 tons of cargo, which is less than 1% of the total goods traffic).

Situated between 56.27 and 53.53 latitudes and 20.56 and 26.50 longitudes, Lithuania is glacially flat, except for morainic hills in the western uplands and eastern highlands no higher than 300 metres. The terrain is marked by numerous small lakes and swamps, and a mixed forest zone covers over 33% of the country. The growing season lasts 169 days in the east and 202 days in the west, with most farmland consisting of sandy- or clay-loam soils. Limestone, clay, sand, and gravel are Lithuania's primary natural resources, but the coastal shelf offers perhaps 1,600,000 m³ (10 Mbbl) of oil deposits, and the southeast could provide high yields of iron ore and granite.