Estonia Geography, Climate & Nature

Estonia is a low country on the eastern shore of the Baltic, bordered by the Gulf of Finland to the north, Lake Peipus and Russia to the east and Latvia to the south. Only a tenth of its terrain rises above 100 metres, and the highest point, Suur Munamägi in the Haanja upland of the south-east, is 318 metres. What the land lacks in height it makes up in water and wood: forests cover 47 per cent of it, there are over 1,500 lakes, numerous bogs, and 3,794 kilometres of coastline cut by bays, straits and inlets.

The islands are a country of their own. Saaremaa, 2,673 square kilometres, is reached by ferry from Virtsu to Kuivastu on Muhu, itself joined to Saaremaa by a causeway; Hiiumaa lies north of it; and over 2,300 smaller islands and islets lie along the western and northern shores. The Kaali meteorite crater is on Saaremaa.

The bogs are the landscape Estonia is proudest of. Lahemaa, on the north coast east of Tallinn, protects 747 square kilometres including 275 of sea, with raised bogs like the 7,000-year-old Laukasoo; Soomaa in the centre protects 390 square kilometres of bog, flood-plain meadow and river. The two largest urban areas are Tallinn on its northern bay, with 452,563 people, and Tartu inland to the south-east, with 97,304.

Estonia's climate is northern and maritime: the coldest months are January and February, when some nights fall to minus 35 degrees, and the first snow usually comes in late October or November. April is the most changeable month, with snowy days in its first half and days above 20 degrees possible later; May brings the first warm spells, with temperatures reaching 20 to 30 degrees on the best days. Summers are mild, warmer in the south and east and cooler on the islands.

Precipitation averaged 573 to 761 millimetres a year in 1991 to 2020, heaviest in late summer and most plentiful on the western slopes of the Sakala and Haanja uplands, with between 102 and 127 rainy days a year. The light is the compensation: midsummer nights barely darken, and midwinter days barely lighten.

Best Destinations by Month has the practical reading.

Estonia's biodiversity is that of a northern country that is nearly half forest and nowhere far from a bog. Forests cover 47 per cent of the land; there are over 1,500 lakes and, by the tourist board's count, no point in the country more than ten kilometres from a bog. The raised bogs are the habitat Estonia protects most deliberately: Lahemaa, declared in 1971 as the first national park in the Soviet Union and still the largest in Estonia at 747 square kilometres, holds the 7,000-year-old Laukasoo; Soomaa, 390 square kilometres created in 1993, has been an Important Bird Area since 1989, a Ramsar wetland since 1997 and a Natura 2000 site since 2004.

The coast and islands add a second world: 3,794 kilometres of shoreline, over 2,300 islands and islets in the West Estonian archipelago and along the northern shore, and the shallow, brackish Baltic between them. The Kaali crater on Saaremaa is the one piece of Estonian geology every visitor hears about.

No species-level survey was consulted beyond the sources named in the data file; the figures are indicative.

The bogs are where a visitor meets Estonia's wildlife without trying: Soomaa's status as an Important Bird Area since 1989 says what lives there, and the boardwalks of Lahemaa's Viru bog cross pools and pine islands that the birds use as much as the walkers do. Spring and autumn migrations along the coast and islands are the peak; the tourist board sells the country as a birding destination for that reason, and the sources opened for this page say no more than that.

The forests that cover 47 per cent of the country hold the northern European mammals, but this page says only what its sources say, and they are silent on numbers; the State Forest Management Centre, which runs the trails, campsites and information points, is the body that knows, and its rules of conduct -- stay on the trail, use the existing campfire sites, check the fire risk on 1247 -- are the terms on which the forest is open.