Geography

Estonia lies on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea on the level northwestern part of the rising east European platform. It borders the Gulf of Finland, between Latvia and Russia. It covers an area of 45,226 sq (including its 1,520 islands), making it the 132nd largest country in the world (after Bhutan). It is about a third the size of England.

Estonia's land border with Latvia runs 267 kilometres; the Russian border runs 290 kilometres. From 1920 to 1945, Estonia's border with Russia, set by the 1920 Tartu Peace Treaty, extended beyond the Narva River in the northeast and beyond the town of Pechory (Petseri) in the southeast. This territory, amounting to some 2,300 square kilometres, was incorporated into Russia by Stalin at the end of World War II. The legal status of these territories remains unsettled between the Republic of Estonia and the Russian Federation, successor of Soviet Union.

Average elevation reaches only 50m (160 ft.) and the country's highest point is the Suur Munamägi in the southeast at 318 metres (1,043 ft).

Geographic Features

Estonia has a long, shallow coastline (1,393 kilometres) along the Baltic Sea, with 1,520 islands dotting the shore. The two largest islands are Saaremaa (literally, island land), at 2,673 square kilometres, and Hiiumaa, at 989 square kilometres. The two islands are favourite Estonian vacation spots. The country's highest point, Suur Munamägi (Egg Mountain), is in the hilly southeast and reaches 318 metres above sea level.

Estonia is covered by about 18000 sq km of forest. Arable land amounts to about 9,260 sq km, meadows cover about 2,520 sq km, and pastureland covers about 1,810 sq km.

There are more than 1,400 natural and artificial lakes in Estonia. The largest of them, Lake Peipsi (3,555 sq km), forms much of the border between Estonia and Russia. Located in central Estonia, Võrtsjärv is the second-largest lake (270 sq km). The Narva and Emajõgi are among the most important of the country's many rivers. The largest are the Võhandu (162 km), Pärnu (144 km), and Põltsamaa (135 km).

Environmental Issues

One of the legacies of the Soviet era was widespread environmental pollution. The army dumped hundreds of thousands of tons of jet fuel into the ground across military installations covering more than 800 sq km of Estonian territory, improperly disposed of toxic chemicals, and discarded outdated explosives and weapons in coastal and inland waters. In the 1990s, during the army's withdrawal from Estonia, extensive damage was done to discarded buildings and equipment.

In October 1993, the Estonian Ministry of Environment issued a preliminary report summing up part of the degradation it had surveyed thus far. The report described the worst damage as having been done to Estonia's topsoil and underground water supply by the systematic dumping of jet fuel at six Soviet army air bases. At the air base near Tapa, site of the worst damage, officials estimated that six square kilometres of land were covered by a layer of fuel; 11 square kilometres of underground water were said to be contaminated. The water in the surrounding area was undrinkable. With Danish help, Estonian crews began cleaning up the site, although they estimated the likely cost to be as much as EKR4 million.

In a 1992 government report to the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development, Estonia detailed other major environmental concerns. For instance, for several consecutive years Estonia had led the world in the production of sulphur dioxide per capita. Nearly 75 % of Estonia's air pollution was reported to come from two oil shale-based thermal power stations operating near Narva. The mining of oil shale in northeastern Estonia also left gigantic mounds of limestone dotting the region. Near the town of Sillamäe, site of a former uranium enrichment plant, about 1,200 tons of uranium and about 750 tons of thorium had been dumped into the Gulf of Finland. This was said to have caused severe health problems among area residents. In the coastal town of Paldiski, the removal of waste left by Soviet army nuclear reactors was also a major concern. The combined cost of environmental cleanup at both towns was put at more than EKR3.5 billion.