Houses in Riga _Latvia

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Riga, Latvian Rīga, city and capital of Latvia. It occupies both banks of the Daugava (Western Dvina) River, 9 miles (15 km) above its mouth on the Gulf of Riga._Encyclopaedia Britannica


Latvia’s independence was declared in Riga on November 18, 1918, and the city became the new republic’s capital. With the Russian border closed to eastern trade, the port’s transit role declined, but its agricultural and timber exports became the core of the national economy. Industry shifted to consumer goods, among them the world’s smallest camera, the VEF Minox. The ķegums hydroelectric power station was completed 30 miles (roughly 50 km) upstream in 1939, and domestic and international flights to Riga’s airport began in the 1920s. The University of Latvia, the Art Academy of Latvia, and the Latvian Conservatoire (now the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music) were established in 1919–22, and the Latvian Open-Air Ethnographic Museum (1924) was just one example of the repositories of national history and culture to appear in the 1920s. Public education tripled the number of municipal schools in the city, serving a diverse ethnic population with instruction in nine languages.