Place:Tartu, Estonia

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Tartu County ( or Tartumaa) is one of 15 counties of Estonia.

It is located in eastern Estonia bordering Põlva County, Valga County, Viljandi County and Jõgeva County.

The area of Tartu County is , which covers 6.9% of the territory of Estonia. In January 2013 Tartu County had a population of 150,139 – constituting 11.6% of the total population in Estonia. The city of Tartu is the centre of the county located at a distance of from Tallinn. Tartu County is divided into 8 local governments – 1 urban and 7 rural municipalities.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Archaeological findings suggest that people first inhabited the territory of the current Tartu County about 5000 years ago. City of Tartu was first mentioned in historical records in 1030, when Yaroslav I the Wise organized a military campaign against Chuds, defeated them and established fort Yuryev in what is modern day Tartu. In 1224, after the conquest of the stronghold by the German invaders, Tartu became the capital of a diocese, stretching from Northern Estonia to Latvia. Since the 13th century, Tartu belonged to the Hanseatic League, and the town became a well-known trade centre in the Baltic Sea region. In 1569, together with Duchy of Livonia, Tartu became part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1598 Tartu became capital of the Dorpat Voivodeship, which remained part of the PLC until the 1620s, when the city was conquered by the Swedes.

King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden established the University of Tartu in 1632. Estonia's first teachers' training school was established in Tartu County in 1684, as well as the first Estonian schools for the children of peasants. Closed during and after the Great Northern War, Tartu University was re-opened in 1802 as the only university operating in German language in the Russian Empire. Economic development of the region was further encouraged by the construction of the railway connecting Tartu with Tallinn, Riga and St. Petersburg. In the second half of the 19th century, the national awakening of Estonians began from Tartu region. After Estonia gained independence in 1918, Tartu, along with Tallinn, became one of the two main cultural centres of Estonia, where most of the Estonian intelligentsia of the time lived and worked. In 1987–1989, the students' environmental and cultural heritage movement in Tartu initiated Estonia's Singing Revolution and restoration of the country's independence.

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