Estonia

Tallinn (historically also known as Reval, among other names) is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It lies on the northern coast of Estonia, along the Gulf of Finland. The city is an important industrial and cultural center, and seapor. The southern coast of the Gulf of Finland is thought to have been settled by Finnic-speaking tribes already in the 2nd millennium BC. Supposedly, in 1154 Tallinn was marked on the world map of the Almoravid cartographer Muhammad al-Idris. As an important port for trade between Russia and Scandinavia, it became a target for the expansion of the Teutonic Knights and Kingdom of Denmark during the period of Northern Crusades in the beginning of the 13th century when Christianity was forcibly imposed on the local population. Danish rule of Tallinn and Northern Estonia started in 1219.

In 1285 the city became the northernmost member of the Hanseatic League - a mercantile and military alliance of German-dominated cities in Northern Europe. The Danes sold Tallinn along with their other land possessions in northern Estonia to the Teutonic Knights in 1346. Medieval Tallinn enjoyed a strategic position at the crossroads of trade between Western and Northern Europe and Russia. The city, with a population of 8,000, was very well fortified with city walls and 66 defence towers.With the start of the Protestant Reformation the German influence became even stronger as the city was converted to Lutheranism In 1561 Tallinn politically became a dominion of Sweden. During the Great Northern War the Swedish troops based in Tallinn capitulated to Imperial Russia in 1710, but the local self-government institutions (Magistracy of Reval and Chivalry of Estonia) retained their cultural and economical autonomy within Imperial Russia as the Duchy of Estonia. The Magistracy of Reval was abolished in 1889. The 19th century brought industrialization of the city and the port kept its importance. During the last decades of the century Russification measures became stronger.