KaliningradKaliningrad (kəˈlɪnᵻnɡræd ; Калининград), until 1946 known as Königsberg (ˈkøːnɪçsbɛʁk; Kyonigsberg; Królewiec), is the largest city and administrative centre of Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave between Lithuania and Poland. The city sits about west from mainland Russia. The city is situated on the Pregolya River, at the head of the Vistula Lagoon on the Baltic Sea, and is the only ice-free port of Russia and the Baltic states on the Baltic Sea. Its population in 2020 was 489,359, with up to 800,000 residents in the urban agglomeration.
ChernyakhovskChernyakhovsk (Черняхо́вск, formerly until 1946 known as Insterburg, ; И́нстербург; Įsrutis; Wystruć) is a town in Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, and the administrative center of Chernyakhovsky District. Located at the confluence of the Instruch and Angrapa rivers, which unite to become the Pregolya river below Chernyakhovsk, the town had a population in 2017 of 36,423. Insterburg was founded in 1337 by the Teutonic Knights on the site of a former Old Prussian fortification when Dietrich von Altenburg, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, built a castle called Insterburg following the Prussian Crusade.
KaunasKaunas (ˈkaʊnəs; ˈkɐʊˑnɐs; previously known in English as Kovno, also see other names) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the largest city and the centre of a county in the Duchy of Trakai of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Trakai Palatinate since 1413. In the Russian Empire, it was the capital of the Kaunas Governorate from 1843 to 1915.
PrussiaPrussia (ˈprʌʃə; Preußen, ˈpʁɔʏsn̩, Old Prussian: Prūsa or Prūsija) was a German state located on most of the North European Plain, also occupying southern and eastern regions. It formed the German Empire when it united the German states in 1871. It was de facto dissolved by an emergency decree transferring powers of the Prussian government to German Chancellor Franz von Papen in 1932 and de jure by an Allied decree in 1947. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, expanding its size with the Prussian Army.
KielKiel (kiːl) is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the Jutland peninsula on the southwestern shore of the Baltic Sea, Kiel has become one of Germany's major maritime centres, known for a variety of international sailing events, including the annual Kiel Week, which is the biggest sailing event in the world.
Klaipėda RegionThe Klaipėda Region (Klaipėdos kraštas) or Memel Territory (Memelland or Memelgebiet) was defined by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles in 1920 and refers to the northernmost part of the German province of East Prussia, when as Memelland it was put under the administration of the Entente's Council of Ambassadors. The Memel Territory, together with other areas severed from Germany (the Saar and Danzig) was to remain under the control of the League of Nations until a future day when the people of these regions would be allowed to vote on whether the land would return to Germany or not.
KönigsbergKönigsberg (ˈkøːnɪçsbɛʁk, King's mountain) was the historic German and Prussian name of the city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. It was founded in 1255 on the site of the small Old Prussian settlement Twangste by the Teutonic Knights during the Baltic Crusades. It was named in honour of King Ottokar II of Bohemia, who led a campaign against the pagan Old Prussians, a Baltic tribe. A Baltic port city, it successively became the capital of the State of the Teutonic Order, the Duchy of Prussia and the provinces of East Prussia and Prussia.
NemanThe Neman, Niemen, Nioman, Nemunas or Memel is a river in Europe that rises in central Belarus and flows through Lithuania then forms the northern border of Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia's western exclave, which specifically follows its southern channel. It drains into the Curonian Lagoon, narrowly connected to the Baltic Sea. It flows about , so is considered a major Eastern European river. It flows generally west to Grodno within of the Polish border, north to Kaunas, then westward again to the sea.
Lithuania MinorLithuania Minor (Mažoji Lietuva; Kleinlitauen; Litwa Mniejsza; Ма́лая Литва́), or Prussian Lithuania (Prūsų Lietuva; Preußisch-Litauen, Litwa Pruska), is a historical ethnographic region of Prussia, where Prussian Lithuanians (or Lietuvininkai) lived, now located in Lithuania and the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia. Lithuania Minor encompassed the northeastern part of the region and got its name from the territory's substantial Lithuanian-speaking population.
Kaliningrad OblastKaliningrad Oblast (Калининградская область) is the westernmost federal subject of the Russian Federation. It is a semi-exclave situated on the Baltic Sea. The largest city and administrative centre of the province (oblast) is the city of Kaliningrad, formerly known as Königsberg. The port city of Baltiysk is Russia's only port on the Baltic Sea that remains ice-free in winter. Kaliningrad Oblast had a population of roughly 1 million in the Russian Census of 2021.
