Latvian people

This article is about the ethnic group called Latvians or Letts. For the inhabitants of Latvia, see Demographics of Latvia.

Latvians
Latvieši

Total population
~1.8 million
Regions with significant populations
Latvia 1,323,713 (2011)
United States 96,070-102,000 (2009) Ireland 48,031 (2011) United Kingdom 39,000 (2011) Russia 28,520 (2002) Canada 27,870 (2006) Brazil 25,000 (2002) New Zealand 20,000 (2004) Australia 18,938 (2004) Germany 9,775 (2006) Norway 4,979 (2011) Ukraine 4,800 (2010) Sweden 4,116 (2009) Spain 2,965 (2008) Lithuania 2,400 (2011) Italy 2,257 (2010) Estonia 2,177 (2011) Kazakhstan 1,900 (2010) Uzbekistan 1,600 (2010) Belarus 1,549 (2009) Netherlands 1,400 (2002) France 956 (1999) Finland 810 (2010) Switzerland 736 (2006) Belgium 679 (2008) Turkmenistan 500 (2010) Venezuela 400 Moldova 400 (2010) Portugal 311 (2009) Georgia 200 Argentina 200 Czech Republic 193 (2010)
Religion
Predominantly Lutheranism, with Roman Catholic minority A large non-religious population. Dievturi minority. Historically Baltic Paganism.
Related ethnic groups
Lithuanians, Kursenieki, Latgalians, Semigallians, Livonians

Latvians or Letts (Latvian: latvieši; Livonian: laett) are the indigenous Baltic people of Latvia.

History

Latvians occasionally refer to themselves by the ancient name of Latvji, which may have originated from the word Latve which is a name of the river that presumably flowed through what is now eastern Latvia. A Finnic-speaking tribe known as the Livs settled among the Latvians and modulated the name to "Latvis," meaning "forest-clearers," which is how medieval German settlers also referred to these peoples. The German colonizers changed this name to "Lette" and called their initially small colony Livland. The Latin form, Livonia, gradually referred to the whole territory of the modern-day Latvia as well as southern Estonia, which had fallen under German dominion. Latvians and Lithuanians are the only surviving members of the Baltic peoples and Baltic languages of the Indo-European family.

Genetics

The paternal Haplogroup N1c1 is the most frequent (45%) among Latvians and is shared with other Northern European nations of Finnic stock, namely Finns, Estonians and others; and also the fellow Baltic Lithuanians.

A significant part of Latvians also show the Haplogroup R1a genes of the paternal ancestorship at 39.5%. Such large frequencies of R1a are frequent throughout Northern, Central, Eastern Europe and Northern India.

Latvians have some cultural and religious influences from centuries of Germanic and Scandinavian colonization and settlement.^{[citation needed]} Eastern Latvia (Latgalia), however, retains a strong Polish and Russian cultural and linguistic influence. This highly literate society places strong emphasis upon education, which is free and compulsory until age 18. Average school expectancy for 5-year-olds (from pre-primary to higher education) was 17,8 in 2006. Most of the religious Latvians belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church but Eastern Latvia (Latgalia) is predominantly Roman Catholic. In the late 18th century, a small but vibrant Herrnhutist movement played a significant part in the development of Latvian literary culture, before it was absorbed in to the mainstream Lutheran denomination.

The national language of the Latvian people is Latvian.

See also

• List of Latvians
• Demographics of Latvia
• History of Latvia
• Latgalians
• Curonians
• Kursi
• Semigallians
• Latvian name