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Definition: Lithuania |
LithuaniaNoun1. A republic in northeastern Europe on the Baltic Sea. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "Lithuania" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1851. (references) |
Synonyms: LithuaniaSynonyms: Lietuva (n), Republic of Lithuania (n). (additional references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
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| National motto: None | ||||
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| Official language | Lithuanian | |||
| Capital | Vilnius | |||
| President | Rolandas Paksas | |||
| Prime minister | Algirdas Myk. Brazauskas | |||
| Area - Total - % water | Ranked 120th 65,200 km² Negligible | |||
| Population
- Total (2000) - Density | Ranked 124th
3,610,535 55.4/km² | |||
| Independence
- Declared - Recognised | From the Imperial Russia
February 16, 1918 July 12, 1920 | |||
| Currency | Litas | |||
| Time zone | UTC +1 | |||
| National anthem | Tautiska Giesme | |||
| Internet TLD | .LT | |||
| Calling Code | 370 | |||
First mentioned in 1009, Lithuania grew to be a significant nation in the Middle Ages. Attempt for Christanisation by force in the 13th century after the arrival of and conflict with the German Teutonic Knights failed and Lithuania became an independent Grand Duchy that eventually stretched across much of Eastern Europe. It eventually was Christanised peacefully by a personal union and later commonwealth with Poland in the 14th century, that remained until it was partitioned in the 1795. Lithuania was directly annexed by Imperial Russia.
A smaller Lithuania established its independence as a kingdom in February 1918 as a part of German planned Mitteleuropa, in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, and then as a republic in November, after Germany's defeat in World War I. The republic intended to break 4 centuries long union with Poland and subsequently was plagued by territorial disputes with Poland (over Central Lithuania and Suwalki) and Germany (over Klaipeda) and became a dictatorship in 1926. It was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 during World War II.
Communist rule ended after the advent of glasnost and Lithuania proclaimed its renewed independence on March 11, 1990, the first Soviet republic to do so, though Soviet forces unsuccessfully tried to suppress this until September 1991. Lithuania has since sought closer ties with the West and is expected to become a member of NATO and the European Union in 2004.
The Lithuanian head of state is the president, elected directly for a five-year term, who also functions as commander in chief overseeing foreign and security policy. The president, on the approval of the parliament, also appoints the prime minister and on the latter's nomination the rest of the cabinet, as well as a number of other top civil servants and the judges for all courts, including the Constitutional Court (Konstitucinis Teismas).
The unicameral Lithuanian parliament, the Seimas, has 141 members that are elected for a four-year term. About half of the members of this legislative body are elected in single constituencies (71), and the other half (70) are elected in the nationwide vote by proportional representation. A party must receive at least 5% of the national vote to be represented in the Seimas.
Lithuania consists of 10 counties (apskritys, singular - apskritis), each named after their principal city. The counties are subdivided into 56 municipalities, both cities and districts. The administrative division was created in 1994.
The largest and most populous of the Baltic states, Lithuania is a generally maritime country with about 100 km of sandy coastline, of which only 38 km face the open Baltic Sea. Lithuania's major warm-water port of Klaipeda lies at the narrow mouth of Kursiu Gulf, a shallow lagoon extending south to Kaliningrad. The main river Nemunas and some of its tributaries are used for internal shipping.
The Lithuanian landscape is glacially flat, except for morainic hills in the western uplands and eastern highlands no higher than 300 meters, with the highest point being the Juozapines at 292 m. The terrain is marked by numerous small lakes and swamps, and a mixed forest zone covers 30% of the country. The climate lies between martitime and continental, with wet, moderate winters and summers. According to some geographers, Lithuania's capital, Vilnius, lies at the geographical centre of Europe.
Lithuania, the Baltic state that has conducted the most trade with Russia, has been slowly rebounding from the 1998 Russian financial crisis. High unemployment, at 12.5% in 2001, and weak consumption have held back recovery. Trade has been increasingly oriented toward the West. Lithuania has gained membership in the World Trade Organisation and has moved ahead with plans to join the European Union in 2004. Privatisation of the large, state-owned utilities, particularly in the energy sector, is underway. The litas, the national currency, has been pegged to the euro since February 2, 2002.
Over 80% of the Lithuanian population is ethnically Lithuanian and speaks the Lithuanian language, one of the two remaining living members of the Baltic language group, which is also the only official state language. Several sizable minorities exist, such as Russians (8%), Poles (7%) and Belarusians (1.5%), and each respective language is also spoken in Lithuania.
The predominant religion is Roman Catholicism, but Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism and Judaism also exist as minority religions.
Countries acceding to membership on May 1, 2004:
nds:Litauen
History
Main article: History of LithuaniaPolitics
Main article: Politics of LithuaniaCounties
Main article: Counties of Lithuania
Geography
Main article: Geography of LithuaniaEconomy
Main article: Economy of LithuaniaDemographics
Main article: Demographics of LithuaniaCulture
Main article: Culture of LithuaniaMiscellaneous topics
External links
Austria | Belgium | Denmark | Finland | France | Germany | Greece | Ireland
Italy | Luxembourg | Netherlands | Portugal | Spain | Sweden | United Kingdom
Cyprus | Czech Republic | Estonia | Hungary | Latvia | Lithuania | Malta | Poland | Slovakia | Slovenia
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Lithuania."
Crosswords: Lithuania |
| English words defined with "Lithuania": capital of Lithuania, Chaim Soutine ♦ Jacques Lipchitz ♦ Kaunas, Klaipeda, Kovna, Kovno ♦ Lipchitz, Lithuanian ♦ Memel ♦ Republic of Lithuania ♦ Soutine ♦ Vilna, Vilnius, Vilno ♦ Wilno. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "Lithuania": Central and Eastern European Countries ♦ litas, lt. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Author | Date | Quotation |
Treaty of Versailles | 1919 | These troops shall abstain from all requisitions and seizures and from any other coercive measures, with a view to obtaining supplies intended for Germany, and shall in no way interfere with such measures for national defence as may be adopted by the Provisional Governments of Esthonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. (reference) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Business | The DII is responsible for the development of the IT sector in Lithuania. (references) | |
The communications sector accounts for 30% of foreign investment in Lithuania. (references) | ||
On a scale from 1 to 5, U.S. telecommunication technology and services receives a 4 in Lithuania. (references) | ||
Civil Liberties | Lithuania | The Government continued its efforts to stop illegal migrants by negotiating readmission agreements with Russia and Belarus, the two countries used by most migrants to reach Lithuania, but no progress had been made by year's end. (references) |
Belarus | All nationally available radio and television broadcasts originating in the country are government-owned, although some broadcasts from other countries, including Russia, Poland and Lithuania, could be received in many parts of the country. (references) | |
Lithuania | The Constitution provides for the freedoms of assembly and association, and the Government generally respects these rights in practice; however, the Communist Party of Lithuania and other organizations associated with the former Soviet regime continued to be banned. (references) | |
Economic History | Lithuania | Over 139,000 enterprises now exist in Lithuania. (references) |
Lithuania | The private sector in Lithuania is growing rapidly. (references) | |
Belarus | Major markets--Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, Lithuania. (references) | |
Human Rights | Lithuania | A case against Gecevicius was brought in 1987 by Soviet authorities in Lithuania but was dropped the same year. (references) |
Lithuania | In 1999 a similar case was initiated against Petras Bernotavicius, a resident of the United States, who returned to Lithuania during the year. (references) | |
Lithuania | The Association for the Defense of Human Rights in Lithuania, the Human Rights Association in Lithuania, and the Lithuanian Center for Human Rights are the major human rights groups. (references) | |
Minorities | Lithuania | However, in its report on minority rights in 10 European Union candidate states, the Open Society Institute stated that Lithuania does not have a comprehensive antidiscrimination law that expressly prohibits discrimination in specific areas of public activity. (references) |
Political Economy | Lithuania | Since its independence in 1990, Lithuania has made steady progress in developing a market economy. (references) |
POLAND | Tariffs: Poland's tariff policy reflects a trend toward liberalization as required by its WTO commitments and a strong bias in favor of its regional free trade partners (EU, EFTA, CEFTA, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Israel, and Turkey). (references) | |
Trade | Austria | Agreements are in place with Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Mexico. (references) |
Lithuania | According to the agreement between Lithuania and the EU, tariffs on some agricultural and industrial goods of EU-origin will gradually be lowered. (references) | |
Lithuania | Fixed investment goods imported to Lithuania are not subject to VAT, provided the importer is a registered VAT-payer and the imported asset does not threaten competitiveness. (references) | |
Travel | Lithuania | Street crime is relatively high in Lithuania. (references) |
Lithuania | Travel by car is generally the fastest and most convenient mode of transportation within Lithuania and to the other two Baltic States. (references) | |
Worker Rights | Lithuania | Women from Lithuania are trafficked mostly to Western Europe and the Middle East. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Lithuania" is generally used as a noun (proper) -- approximately 99.84% of the time. "Lithuania" is used about 607 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (proper) | 99.84% | 606 | 10,598 |
| Noun (singular) | 0.16% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 607 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "Lithuania": capital of Lithuania ♦ Republic of Lithuania. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "Lithuania": Byelorussia-lithuania. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "Lithuania"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Afrikaan | Litaue. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | Lituani. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Asturian | Lituania. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 立陶宛 (Lithuanian). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | LT (Republic of Lithuania), Litauen (Republic of Lithuania), Republikken Litauen (Republic of Lithuania). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | Litouwen (Republic of Lithuania). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Esperanto | Litovujo, Litovio. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faeroese | Litaua. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | LT (Republic of Lithuania), Liettuan tasavalta (Republic of Lithuania), Liettua (Republic of Lithuania). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | Lituanie (Republic of Lithuania). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | Litauen (Lithuania (lt)). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | Λιθουανία (Republic of Lithuania). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | litvánia. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | Lituania (Republic of Lithuania). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | リチウム爆弾 (car with 1000cc engine, lip, lip cream, lip service, lipreading, lipstick, literacy, literal, literary, literature, lithium bomb, lithograph, litmus, litre, redisplay, reduce, rich, ridge, ripple, rocking motion, small-scale finance). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | リトアニア . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean | 리투아니아. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Macedonian | Litvanija. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | ithuanialay Lituânia (lithuanian). (various references) Lituania. (various references) ѓитва, Литва. (various references) Lituania (Republic of Lithuania). (various references) Litauen (Republic of Lithuania). (various references) Litwanya. (various references) Литва. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Misspellings | |
"Lithuania" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Lethaia. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-h-i-i-l-n-t-u" | |
-2 letters: nautili. | |
-3 letters: hiatal, inhaul, lithia, tahini, thulia. | |
-4 letters: aalii, alant, haunt, laith, lanai, lathi, lauan, liana, litai, natal, nihil, uhlan, unhat, unlit, until. | |
-5 letters: alan, alit, anal, anil, anta, anti, aunt, hail, halt, hant, haul, haut, hila, hili, hilt, hint, hula, hunt, ilia, inia, inti, lain, lath, lati, lint, litu, luna, lunt, nail, tail. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-h-i-i-l-n-t-u" | |
+4 letters: callithumpian, hallucinating, hallucination, uninhabitable. | |
+5 letters: hallucinations, humanistically. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)4C 69 74 68 75 61 6E 69 61 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references).-.. .. - .... ..- .- -. .. .- |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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| Amazon.com BOOKS: Search for: "Lithuania" |
