Šiauliai County, Lithuania — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Šiauliai County known for?

A border and a date. Šiauliai County was created in 1994 as one of the ten counties of Lithuania, and it runs up against Latvia, which gives an inland administrative unit an international edge to its outline. Šiauliai is the capital. The city gives the county its name, and since the abolition of the county administration in 2010 it has been the one fixed point in a unit that no longer governs anything.

Where is Šiauliai County?

Šiauliai County shares a frontier with Latvia. That border is the one edge of the county that is not simply a line between Lithuanian counties, and it gives an otherwise inland unit a hard outer margin on the northern side. Not a metre of coastline belongs to it. Šiauliai stands as the capital, and the rest of the county is the country worked around it, one of ten such divisions that account for the whole of Lithuania.

A temperate climate holds across the whole county. Latvia lies over the top of it, and the counties of Lithuania fill in every other direction. The outline dates from 1994. Šiauliai County was drawn that year, so its shape on the map of Lithuania is a modern administrative decision, and the same lines have carried the name ever since. Šiauliai anchors the middle.

Distances inside Šiauliai County are measured from the capital, and a run to the Latvia border is the one journey that takes a traveller out of Lithuania altogether. Administration thinned in 2010. The county administration was abolished on 1 July of that year, and Šiauliai County has stood since as a territorial and statistical unit whose boundaries still describe a real piece of ground.

What is Šiauliai County like?

The county carries a city's name. Šiauliai gives the unit its label, and in a county created only in 1994 the city's identity is the older of the two by a long way, which is why people say Šiauliai and mean either. Latvia is close. A county that runs up to another state carries that fact in everything written about it, and the Latvia frontier is what most clearly separates Šiauliai County from the wholly interior counties of Lithuania.

The founding date is recent. Šiauliai County dates from 1994, so whatever holds it together comes from the capital at its centre and from the Latvia border along its edge rather than from any long shared past. Then the offices closed. On 1 July 2010 the county administration was abolished, and what remains is a territorial and statistical unit, so the name describes a place on the map and a way of grouping it rather than an office. Šiauliai kept everything else.

The capital still carries the county's public life, and a visitor asking about Šiauliai County will be answered with the city, with the road north to Latvia, and with the fact that Lithuania divides into ten of these.

What is the history of Šiauliai County?

Two dates carry the record. Šiauliai County came into being in 1994, taking its place among the ten counties into which Lithuania is divided and taking its name from the city chosen as its capital. The second date undid the first. On 1 July 2010 the county administration was abolished, leaving a territorial and statistical unit that still borders Latvia and still answers to the name Šiauliai County.

What is the climate of Šiauliai County?

The county has no coast. Šiauliai County lies in the temperate band of the northern hemisphere, far enough from any shore that the year turns on continental swings rather than on anything the water does. The Latvia border shares it. Ground on both sides of that line runs to the same pattern, so a day spent between Šiauliai and the frontier needs one set of clothes and not two.

How do you get to Šiauliai County?

Šiauliai is the point of arrival. Roads into Šiauliai County converge on the capital, and travellers coming from elsewhere in Lithuania reach the county through it rather than through any other named centre. The Latvia border adds a second way in.

Traffic crossing from Latvia enters Šiauliai County directly, which makes the county a first stop for anyone coming south into Lithuania by road.