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Estonia lies along the Baltic Sea, just south of Finland and has a climate of icy, snowy winters and long light summers. It is a country about the same size as the Netherlands, and is sparsely populated with around 1.4m people. Tallinn, Estonia's capital city, is about 80 km or 50 miles south of Helsinki, across the Gulf of Finland. Sweden is Estonia's western neighbour across the Baltic. Russia lies to the east, Latvia to the south.

The country is mostly flat, with many lakes and islands although in the south there are rolling hills and skiing is possible in towns like Otepaa. In the east of Estonia, lake Peipus, the 4th largest lake in Europe, forms a natural frontier with Russia. On the Western Coast, the islands and islets have been designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and are a mecca for Estonians and tourists alike during the summer. Across Estonia, much of the land is farmed or forested, with industrial production concentrated around Tallinn and in the Northeast.

Tallinn is an important port and one of the best preserved medieval cities in Europe. It is a city of grey towers topped with red tiles, of stone stairs beneath arching gateways, of narrow winding streets, cobbled pavement and towering ramparts. Outside the capital, other notable towns include Tartu, an ancient university town in the south-east, Narva with its imposing fortress on the border with Russia in the north and Parnu with its attractive beach in the south-west.

The ancestors of today's Estonians - a reserved people speaking Estonian, a Finno-Ugric tongue related to Finnish and, distantly, to Hungarian - have lived on the Eastern shores of the Baltic Sea for thousands of years.

Throughout the centuries an integral part of Estonian life has been the sauna. Saunas in Estonia are a national institution. One theory is that the sauna evolved as a sun substitute, giving Estonians the psychological benefits of intense heat during the long, dark months of the year.

A more recent development is the Estonian love of information technology. Estonia is the leading country for internet connections per capita among the associate members of the European Union (with 64.7 internet hosts per 1000 persons in 2002). In August 2002 it ranked ahead of many EU Member States, including the UK, Germany, Belgium and France. The country code is ".ee". The Government has lead the way to E-Estonia, changing its cabinet meetings to paperless sessions using a web-based system back in March 2000. Election laws will include an e-voting option from 2005.

Well known Estonians include the composer Arvo Part, the supermodel Carmen Kass, the Olympic decathlon gold medalist Erki Nool and Winter Olympic skiing gold medalist Andrus Veerpalu. In 2001 Tanel Padar won the Eurovision song contest, with the result that the contest was held in Estonia in the following year.

Estonia's native folklore survived centuries of foreign domination thanks largely to a rich oral tradition of songs, verses and chants on subjects like the seasonal cycle, farming the land, family life, love and myths. The oldest Estonian song type, going back to the first millennium BC, is the runic chant, based on lines of 8 syllables with a theme gradually developing from line to line.

Modern Estonian literature began in the early 19th century with the poems of Kristjan Jaak Peterson. The national epic poem, Kalevipoeg (Son of Kalev), was written in the mid-19th century by Freidrich Reinhold Kreutzwald. The giant of 20th century Estonian literature is novelist Anton Hansen Tammsaare. Novelist Jan Kross and poet Jaan Kaplinski have recently received international acclaim.

Like Finnish, Estonian is a Finno-Ugric language, which sets it apart from Latvian, Lithuanian and Russian (all members of the Indo-European language family). It's a very Nordic-sounding language with lots of deep 'oos' and 'uus'. Lutheranism and Orthodoxy are the main religions, but only a minority of Estonians profess any religious beliefs.

Smoked fish, especially trout (suitsukala) is an Estonian speciality and, when it comes to sausages, you can be excused for thinking that the country caters more to vampires than vegetarians. At Christmas time, sausages are prepared from fresh blood and wrapped in pig's intestine. Blood sausages (verevorst) and blood pancakes (vere pannkoogid) are served in most traditional Estonian restaurants.

No one quite knows what the syrupy Vana Tallinn liqueur is made from. It's sickly sweet, very strong and an essential part of any Estonian table. It's best served in coffee, over ice with milk or, if you feel up to it, with champagne. Estonia's best beers are the light Saku beer and the heavier Saare beer from the island of Saaremaa, while some cafes and bars serve tasty, warming hoogvein (mulled wine).

The most prfectly preserved 14th-century town
The Old Town is surely the most famous and crowded place in Tallinn. This is a unique place, which tempts tourists. There are lots of art galleries, museums, souvenir shops, boutiques, restaurants from different nationalities and lots of pubs with live music