Riga

Riga is the capital city of Latvia.

A wide river called the Daugava flows through it to the sea. The old town has narrow streets, tall church towers and buildings with fancy, decorated fronts.

Riga is the capital of Latvia, one of the three Baltic countries in northern Europe. It sits on both banks of the Daugava River, about 15 kilometers before the river reaches the sea at the Gulf of Riga.

Riga was founded in 1201 and grew rich from trade across the Baltic Sea. Latvia's Central Statistical Bureau gives 588,911 people in the city at the start of 2026. Its historic center is a World Heritage Site, famous for buildings with richly decorated fronts.

Riga occupies both banks of the Daugava (Western Dvina) River, 15 km above its mouth on the Gulf of Riga, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The Daugava was a major trade route to the east and south from the Viking Age onward, and a natural harbor where the small Ridzene River once joined it gave seagoing ships shelter.

Latvia's Central Statistical Bureau gives a population of 588,911 at the beginning of 2026, down from 610,322 at the start of 2023 and from 658,640 at the 2011 census. The city's Russian community made up some two-fifths of the population in the early 21st century. UNESCO listed the historic center in 1997, describing its concentration of Art Nouveau architecture as the finest in the world.

Riga's old town is full of very old buildings.

One of them, the House of Blackheads, has a tall, pointy front with statues and a big clock. Outside the old town, many buildings have fancy decorations on their fronts.

Many medieval buildings survive in Riga's Old Town, among them the Riga Dom, a cathedral from the 1200s, and Riga Castle, from 1330. The House of Blackheads, first built in the 1300s, was damaged in World War II and torn down in 1954, then rebuilt in 2000.

Around the Old Town runs a canal that was once the moat of the city's fortress. Beyond it are streets of buildings in the Art Nouveau style, called Jugendstil in Latvia, with elaborately decorated fronts. UNESCO says Riga has the finest collection of Art Nouveau buildings in Europe.

The Historic Centre of Riga, inscribed by UNESCO in 1997, includes the medieval core, the semicircle of boulevards and the former suburbs. Surviving medieval buildings include the 13th-century Riga Dom (cathedral), Riga Castle (1330) and merchants' houses and warehouses; the 14th-century House of Blackheads, damaged in World War II and razed in 1954, was rebuilt in 2000. The canal ringing the Old Town was the fortress moat.

In the 19th century the suburbs were laid out first with imposing wooden buildings in neoclassical style and then, once permanent stone buildings were allowed, in Art Nouveau (Jugendstil), whose elaborate facades testify to Riga's wealth around 1900; UNESCO calls the concentration unparalleled. The National Opera, built as the Riga German Theatre in 1863, was renovated in the 1990s, and the National Library was completed in 2013.

Riga has a giant song festival.

Every five years, tens of thousands of people come to a big outdoor stage to celebrate Latvian songs together!

Every five years, tens of thousands of people come to Riga for a huge festival of Latvian song and dance, held on an outdoor choral stage in Mežaparks. In 2003 UNESCO recognized the song and dance festival, together with similar festivals in Estonia and Lithuania, as a masterpiece of the world's cultural heritage.

Riga's factories build and repair ships and make machine tools, engines and streetcars. Computer technology, biotechnology and tourism are growing. The city has universities, such as the University of Latvia, and a famous music academy.

Riga's factories, many now affiliates of transnational corporations, build and repair ships and make machine tools, rolling stock, diesel engines and streetcars; biotechnology and information technology are growing, and services, especially tourism, matter more and more. Higher education includes the University of Latvia, Riga Technical University and Riga Stradiņš University, and the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music has launched many international careers.

The song festival tradition dates to 1873, when the Riga Latvian Society organized the first Latvian national song festival. Today tens of thousands gather on the Mežaparks choral stage every five years, and UNESCO proclaimed the Baltic song and dance celebrations masterpieces of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity in 2003. Riga hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 2003 and the Ice Hockey World Championship in 2006.