Klaipėda Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids

Klaipėda

City municipality

Klaipėda

Coat of arms

Nickname(s):

Uostamiestis (port city)

Location of Klaipėda

Country

Lithuania

Ethnographic region

Lithuania minor

County

Klaipėda County

Municipality

Klaipėda city municipality

Capital of

Klaipėda County
Klaipėda city municipality

First mentioned

1252

Granted city rights

1254

Elderships

Melnragė and Giruliai

Area

• Total

110 km² (40 sq mi)

Population

(2011)

• Total

161,300

Time zone

UTC+2 (EET)

• Summer (DST)

UTC+3 (EEST)

Website

http://www.klaipeda.lt

Klaipėda is a city in Lithuania. It is where the Nemunas River flows into the Baltic Sea. Klaipėda is the third largest city in Lithuania and the capital of Klaipėda County. The German name of the city is Memel. Until 1920, this city was the northernmost city of the German Empire.

The city has a complex recorded history, partially due to the combined regional importance of the usually ice-free Port of Klaipėda at the mouth of the Akmena-Danė River. It was controlled by successive German states until the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.

As a result of the 1923 Klaipėda Revolt it was annexed by Lithuania and has remained with Lithuania to this day, except for the period between 1939 and 1945 when it returned to Germany following the 1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania and the German–Soviet Union Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Klaipėda remained part of Lithuania after it again became independent state.

The Port of Klaipėda is the principal ice-free port on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. It is the most important Lithuanian transportation hub, connecting sea, land and railway routes from East to West. The port operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all year round.

Popular seaside resorts found close to Klaipėda are Nida to the south on the Curonian Spit, and Palanga to the north.

Economy
Places of interest
Images for kids
See also

Economy

Klaipėda is famous for Švyturys brewery, established in 1784

Klaipėda is an industry, business, education and science, health, tourism and recreation, administrative center. Historically, Klaipėda is one of the most successful developing municipalities in the Western Lithuania.

The city generates approximately 12 percent of the country GDP and about 80 percent of the Western Lithuania. It is greatly influenced due to the Port of Klaipėda which is a very important transport hub.

In the eastern part of the city there is Klaipėda Free Economic Zone offering 0 percent tax incentives for first 6 years, it is also the location of the first Geothermal Demonstration Plant in the Baltic States, which is supplying the city with geothermal heating and Fortum Klaipėda Combined Heat and Power Plant.

Places of interest

Ännchen von Tharau sculpture

Klaipėda's Old Town is notable among other towns in Lithuania for its abundance of German and Scandinavian architecture. Klaipėda's Old Town is unique with its architectural style and the planned street structure, which is uncharacteristic to any other old town in Lithuania. Its streets are geometrically configured very correctly.

One of most popular places in Klaipėda‘s old town is The Theatre Square which hosts a variety of concerts, the Sea Festival, the International Jazz Festival and other events. An important focus of the Theatre Square is the Taravos Anikė sculpture depicting a youthful barefoot girl. The sculpture was erected in the memory of the poet Simonas Dachas.

The maritime museum with six different exhibitions is set in a former nineteenth-century fortification of the Spit. In the Maritime Museum, there is a huge aquarium, the exhibitions of marine fauna, mammals and seabirds.

Lithuanian Maritime Museum

The aquarium is populated with invertebrates, and freshwater fish of Lithuania – many species, not only from the Baltic Sea, but also from various tropical seas. The museum’s courtyard has a pool filled with seals, sea lions, and penguins. The marine fauna exhibition has diverse exhibits: mollusk shells, various fossils, algae and other special exhibits, surviving the prehistorical dinosaur times.

Klaipėda's main attractions are the historic buildings in the city's centre, dating from the 13th to 18th centuries. Some of its older buildings have picturesque half-timbered construction, similar to that found in Germany, France, England, Denmark and southern Sweden.

Images for kids

Klaipėda city seal, 1446 (diameter 200 mm (7.9 in)). From the Archive of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Berlin.
Preserved historic timber framed architecture
Historical illustration of Memel (1684)
Spit fortress
Klaipėda Town Hall was the temporary residence of the King Frederick William III of Prussia, his wife Queen Louise and their children.
Central Post Office, the former residence of Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander and monarchs of Prussia
Early 20th-century view of the city
Supreme Commander of the Lithuanian Army Silvestras Žukauskas in Klaipėda, 1925
Visit of Adolf Hitler following the German annexation of the city, March 1939
Private boats in Klaipėda
Costa Pacifica in Klaipėda
Klaipėda's climate is under the influence of the Baltic Sea.
The Dutchman's Cap
The port of Klaipėda handled more than 31 million tons of cargo in 2010
K and D complex
A narrow gauge railway station in 1920
Palanga International Airport
View to the Klaipėda central ferry port terminal – the Old Ferry port
Klaipėda Bus Station
Old town of Klaipėda
One of Klaipėda's most recognizable symbols – The Meridianas
Klaipėda Drama Theatre
Look alike fachwerk style building "Old Mill hotel"
Port of Klaipėda in 1852
Biržos Bridge, photographed before 1930. The bascule bridge was an important source of income for the city.
Klaipėda Old Town in 1932
Klaipėda beach
Arka Monument for united Lithuania
Klaipėda University
Ieva Simonaitytė Public Library
Sculpture next to Klaipėda Railway Station
Statue of a boy in Klaipėda harbor
Modern buildings in Klaipėda
Litas commemorative coin dedicated to Klaipėda city (2002)

Klaipėda facts for kids

Contents

Economy

Places of interest

Images for kids

See also