Geography of Lithuania
The largest and most populous of the Baltic states, Lithuania is a generally maritime country with 60 miles of sandy coastline, of which only 24 miles face the open Baltic Sea.
Lithuania's major warm-water port of Klaipeda lies at the narrow mouth of Kursiu Gulf (Curonian Lagoon), a shallow lagoon extending south to Kaliningrad and separated from the Baltic sea by Curonian Spit, which is a natural preserve, Kursiu Nerija National Park, included into UNESCO World Heritage List.
Climate: transitional, between maritime and continental; wet, moderate winters and summers
The Nemunas 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). Between 56.27 and 53.53 latitude and 20.56 and 26.50 longitude, Lithuania is glacially flat, except for morainic hills in the western uplands and eastern highlands no higher than 300 meters.
The terrain is marked by numerous small lakes and swamps, and a mixed forest zone covers 30% 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 1.6 million m³ (10 million barrels) of oil deposits, and the southeast could provide high yields of iron ore and granite.
According to some geographers, Lithuania's capital, Vilnius, lies at the geographical center of Europe. Lithuania's location is in northeastern Europe, bordering the Baltic Sea, between Latvia and Russia
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