The following is a list of the 47 cities and towns in

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

. Before the Republic of Estonia became an in independent nation in 1918, many of these locations were known in the rest of the world by their

German language German ( ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is als ...

names which were occasionally quite different from the ones used in the

Estonian language Estonian ( ) is a Finnic language, written in the Latin script. It is the official language of Estonia and one of the official languages of the European Union, spoken natively by about 1.1 million people; 922,000 people in Estonia and 160, ...

. During the 1944–1991 Soviet occupation of Estonia, placenames were

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...

into

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

(

Cyrillic alphabet , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = Gr ...

) in the Soviet central government's documents, which in turn lead to the use of several incorrect back-transliterations from Russian (Cyrillic) alphabet into English (and other

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...

s) in some English-language maps and texts during the second half of the 20th century (for example, incorrect ''Pyarnu'', ''Vilyandi'', ''Pylva'', instead of the correct Pärnu, Viljandi, Põlva). Tallinn is the capital and the most populous city of Estonia. There are 46 other ''linn'', i.e. cities and towns in Estonia (as of 2022). The Estonian word ''linn'' means both "a city" or "a town". More than 70% of the country's population lives in the cities and towns.

List

Former towns

Ahtme Ahtme is a settlement in Ida-Viru County, Estonia with a population of around 18,000. It is administered as the second major district of the town of Kohtla-Järve, despite being separate from the central district of Järve and geographically ...

, 1953–1960, 1993–1995, merged with

Kohtla-Järve Kohtla-Järve is a city and municipality in northeastern Estonia, founded in 1924 and incorporated as a town in 1946. The city is highly industrial, and is both a processor of oil shales and is a large producer of various petrochemical products ...

; * Jaanilinn (Ivangorod), 1617-1649, merged with

Narva Narva, russian: Нарва is a municipality and city in Estonia. It is located in Ida-Viru county, at the eastern extreme point of Estonia, on the west bank of the Narva river which forms the Estonia–Russia international border. With 54 ...

, annexed to the

Russian SFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...

in 1945. * Mustla, 1938-1979, town rights revoked; *

Nõmme Nõmme (Estonian for ''"Heath"'') is one of the 8 administrative districts ( et, linnaosa) of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. It has a population of 39,422 () and covers an area of , population density is . The district is largely a middle-clas ...

, 1926-1940, merged with

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju '' ...

; * Petseri (Pechory), 1776-onwards, annexed to the Russian SFSR in 1945. *

Toompea Toompea (from german: Domberg, "Cathedral Hill") is a limestone hill in the central part of the city of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. The hill is an oblong tableland, which measures about 400 by 250 metres, has an area of and is about 20–30 ...

, 1248/1265/1288-1785, 1796-1878, merged with Tallinn; * Vana-Pärnu, 1251-1617, merged with

Pärnu Pärnu () is the fourth largest city in Estonia. Situated in southwest Estonia, Pärnu is located south of the Estonian capital, Tallinn, and west of Estonia's second largest city, Tartu. The city sits off the coast of Pärnu Bay, an inlet ...

References

External links

* * {{Europe topic, List of towns in, EE={{PAGENAME

Towns A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

List

Former towns

See also

References

External links