Estonia facts – business start up possibilities, people and nature

[Patrick Moore]

Area: 45 226 sq.km
Total national border length: 1,450.2 km
Length of Estonia’s Baltic coastline: 768.6 km
Population: 1,364 million (Source: Population Register in year 2000)
Borders with: Latvia, Russia.

Languages of Estonia

Official Language:Estonian.
Estonian is, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and thousands in various emigrant communities. Estonian is Uralic language and is closely related to Finnish.

Geography of Estonia

Estonia is a flat country covering 45,226 square kilometers. Estonia has many islands - the largest are Saaremaa (literally, island land), and Hiiumaa. The two islands are common Estonian vacation spots. The country's highest point, Suur Munamägi (Egg Mountain), is in the hilly southeast and reaches 318 meters above sea level. The country has over 1,400 natural and artificial lakes.

Nature

Almost half of Estonian territory (47.6 per cent) is covered by forest and woodlands; the area of forest stands has more than doubled during the last 50 years. Estonia is situated on a border area where the coniferous Euro-Siberian taiga opens onto a European zone of deciduous forests. There are 87 native and more than 500 introduced tree and bush species recorded. The Scots pine is the most common tree in Estonian woods — dominant in 41 per cent of forests, followed by birches (silver and downy birch) — 28 per cent, Norway spruce — 23 per cent, alders (grey and common alder) and aspen.
Estonia is rich in wetlands. There are some 165 000 marshes greater than one hectare in area, of which 132 peatlands are larger than 1000 ha. The total area of marshes and swamp forests measures 1 009 101 ha which is over one fifth (22.3 per cent) of the country’s territory.