This article reviews the portrayal of Latvia and Latvians in English sources from
the beginning of the 17th century until today with a focus on the early sources.
These are mainly travellers’ writings, memoirs and fiction that address Latvia and
Latvians as characters. While in the early works the authors focus on the territory,
town and non-Latvian elite life and Latvians as the local population are often not
even mentioned, later the depiction of Latvians is often quite knowledgeable and

The aim of this article is to present changes in the three Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia
and Lithuania) and to analyse the demographic developments of the titular ethnicities
and ethnic minorities. In all censuses carried out in the Baltics, including the
2000-2001 and 2011 censuses, respondents were asked to name their ethnic identity.
This gave basic information for study of ethnic composition and the characteristics
of ethnic Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians and other ethnic groups living in the
Baltics. The article reports from study of ethnic developments since the regained
political independence in the beginning of the 1990s and more detailed in the last
decade. A sudden reversal of migration and natural reproduction processes changed
the population proportion of titular ethnicities, Slavs and other minorities. In the
1990s and the beginning of this century the total number of population of ethnic
Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians has decreased; however, the proportion of titular
ethnicities has increased. The Baltic States have one of the highest population loss
indicators in the world. The excess of deaths over births has been since 1991, and
emigration is strongly prevailing in international migration processes, particularly
among minorities. However, even now minorities constitute one- fourth of the total
in the Baltic population (in Latvia 38%, in the capital city Riga 54%). The age structure
of minorities is relatively older than the structure of the titular ethnicities. The
largest minorities by size are Russians, Poles (the greater majority of them reside in
Lithuania), Belarussians and Ukrainians.