13 ATLASES
History of Lithuania in maps
Lithuania as it appears in 13 interactive history atlases, from 1789 to 2015: Lithuania, Soviet Union, Soviet Lithuania. Each era below lists who ruled the land and when control changed, linked to the dated map that shows it.
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What was Lithuania before it was Lithuania? The sections below follow this land through every era covered by the Maps of History atlases: who ruled it, what it was called, and when control changed. Each line links to the dated map. Modern borders serve as an approximation, as each atlas says on the map itself.
Lithuania · Norse and Aztecs
| Other peoples and states — the opening position |
NORSE AND AZTECS: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Pagan Lithuania · Mongol Empire
| Beyond the conquests — the opening position |
MONGOL EMPIRE: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Lithuania (Russian Empire) · Industrial Revolution
| Industrialising — the opening position | |
| Industrialising | |
| Industrialising |
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Lithuania · Age of Revolutions
| The conservative monarchies — the opening position |
AGE OF REVOLUTIONS: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Lithuania · Meiji Japan and post-Soviet Russia
On 11 March 1990 Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare independence, led by Sąjūdis and its chairman Vytautas Landsbergis. Moscow responded with an economic blockade. In January 1991 troops attacked the Vilnius television tower, killing fourteen people. Lithuania’s defiance tested whether force could hold the Union together; the test showed that it could not.
| The USSR, then Russia — the opening position | |
| War, rebellion, breakaway | |
| Independent neighbours |
MEIJI JAPAN AND POST-SOVIET RUSSIA: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Lithuania · Russian Revolution
Germany occupied Lithuania throughout the World War. In 1918 Lithuania declared independence, then defended it against Soviets, Poles and Germans at once. Its long quarrel with Poland over Vilnius began in these years. Independence lasted until 1940.
| The Tsarist empire — the opening position | |
| Foreign powers & intervention | |
| Breakaway national states |
RUSSIAN REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Lithuania (Russian Empire) · WWI
| The Entente & Allies — the opening position | |
| The Entente & Allies | |
| Under Central Powers occupation | |
| Neutral or unaligned | |
| Under Central Powers occupation | |
| Neutral or unaligned |
Lithuania · Stalin’s Soviet Union
Lithuania gained Vilnius in October 1939 from the Soviet partition of Poland. The gain was short-lived: Lithuania itself was occupied and annexed in June–August 1940. About 17,500 people were deported in June 1941. German occupation and the Holocaust followed. On its return in 1944, the Red Army faced the strongest partisan war in the Baltic; some 20,000 forest brothers were killed by 1953, and Operation Priboi deported about 30,000 people in 1949.
| Annexed by the USSR, 1939–45 — the opening position | |
| Annexed by the USSR, 1939–45 | |
| Under German occupation | |
| Annexed by the USSR, 1939–45 |
STALIN’S SOVIET UNION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Lithuania · Road to WW2
| Neutral & unaligned — the opening position | |
| Aggressor clients & partners | |
| Democracies & powers fighting them |
ROAD TO WW2: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Lithuania · WW2
| Soviet Union — the opening position | |
| Soviet Union |
Lithuania · Cold War
| USSR & Warsaw Pact — the opening position | |
| Non-aligned & neutral | |
| Non-aligned & neutral |
COLD WAR: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Soviet Union (Lithuania) · Feminism and the Tunisian Revolution
| Right won in law — the opening position | |
| No reform yet / outside this story | |
| Right won in law |
FEMINISM AND THE TUNISIAN REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Soviet Lithuania · Refugee crises
Lithuania gained Vilnius, which had been Polish between the wars. Most of the city’s Poles left for Poland after 1944, and its Jewish community had been murdered in the Holocaust. Soviet deportations of Lithuanians to Siberia continued into 1949. Tens of thousands of Lithuanian DPs in Germany refused to return, forming a diaspora that kept the idea of independence alive until 1990.
| Soviet-occupied or communist — the opening position |
REFUGEE CRISES: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
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