Klaipėda County, Lithuania — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Klaipėda County known for?

Klaipėda County is the only one of them that reaches salt water, and the Baltic Sea forms its whole western edge while Tauragė County and Telšiai County sit inland behind it. Klaipėda is its capital and the county's working hub. Administration ended on 1 July 2010, since which the county has served as a territorial and statistical unit rather than a tier of government.

Where is Klaipėda County?

Four land borders and one sea define Klaipėda County. Tauragė County lies to the southeast and Telšiai County to the northeast, the Latvian region of Kurzeme closes the northern edge, and Kaliningrad Oblast in Russia runs along the southern side. The Baltic Sea takes the rest.

That single fact separates it from the other nine counties of Lithuania, none of which reach open water, and it is the reason a shoreline, not an interior, is the first thing said about Klaipėda County. The county is a frontier as much as a shoreline, since the Latvian region of Kurzeme touches it in one direction and Kaliningrad Oblast in the other, putting two international borders on a single administrative unit. Klaipėda anchors it.

The capital gives the county its foothold on the Baltic Sea and the reference point from which the rest of Klaipėda County is described. Everything else in Klaipėda County is measured against that coast and against the inland counties, Telšiai County and Tauragė County, that shut it off from the rest of Lithuania. The unit has been territorial and statistical since 1 July 2010, so its lines are drawn for description.

What is Klaipėda County like?

The county takes its name from Klaipėda. That single choice tells most of the story, because the capital on the Baltic Sea gives the whole unit its label, its focus and the point from which people inland describe everything else in Klaipėda County. Salt water changes things.

Nine other Lithuanian counties are landlocked, and the single coastline here is the fact that every description of Klaipėda County reaches for first. Klaipėda is the hub the rest of the county measures itself against, capital in name and in practice. Borders shape the second half of it.

Kurzeme lies over the line in Latvia, Kaliningrad Oblast in Russia lies over another, and a county with two foreign neighbours and a sea in front of it faces outward by default. Tauragė County and Telšiai County hold the landward side, and the contrast between the two halves is the most durable thing about the county's character. Administration is thinner than it was.

Since 1 July 2010 Klaipėda County has functioned as a territorial and statistical unit, which leaves the shared coastline, not a county government, as the thing that holds the name together.

What is the history of Klaipėda County?

One date rules this record. On 1 July 2010 the county administration was abolished, and Klaipėda County has since existed as a territorial and statistical unit rather than as a tier of government with offices of its own. The name outlived the office.

Klaipėda stayed the capital, the boundaries with Tauragė County, Telšiai County, Kurzeme and Kaliningrad Oblast stayed drawn, and the county kept its place among the ten of Lithuania.

What is the climate of Klaipėda County?

The Baltic Sea moderates here. Klaipėda County sits in the temperate band of the northern hemisphere, and being the one Lithuanian county with a shoreline, it feels the water's steadying effect more than Telšiai County or Tauragė County inland. Anyone planning days on the coast between Kurzeme and Kaliningrad Oblast packs for a maritime climate rather than a continental one.

How do you get to Klaipėda County?

Klaipėda is the way in. The county capital is the arrival point for almost everyone, whether they come overland from Telšiai County and Tauragė County or across the boundary from Kurzeme in Latvia to the north. The southern approach is different.

Kaliningrad Oblast in Russia borders Klaipėda County on that side, so the crossing there is an international one and not a simple county-to-county drive.