Place:Jūrmala, Latvia

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NameJūrmala
Alt namesJūrmalasource: Getty Vocabulary Program
TypeCity
Coordinates56.983°N 23.583°E
Located inLatvia
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names


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

Jūrmala (; "seaside") is a city in Latvia, about west of Riga. Jūrmala is a resort town stretching and sandwiched between the Gulf of Riga and the Lielupe River. It has a stretch of white-sand beach, and a population of 49,325 in 2019, making it the fifth-largest city in Latvia.

While Latvia was part of the Soviet Union, Jūrmala was a favorite holiday-resort and tourist destination for high-level Communist Party officials, particularly Leonid Brezhnev and Nikita Khrushchev. Although many amenities such as beach-houses and concrete hotels remain, some have fallen into disrepair. Jūrmala remains a tourist attraction with long beaches facing the Gulf of Riga and romantic wooden houses in the Art Nouveau style.

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History

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

The name Jūrmala stems from Latvian jūra ("sea") and mala ("edge", "side", "margin"), thus "seaside" in English.

In 1920, soon after Latvian independence, the town of Rīgas Jūrmala ("Seaside of Riga") was established. In German it became known as Rigasche Strand and Riga-Strand (Beach of Riga), and advertised as part of Baltische Riviera (the Baltic Riviera)

During World War II, Jūrmala lost its autonomy and by 1946 it was a district of Riga. In 1949 this district was enlarged to include Priedaine. Finally, in 1959 the district of Jūrmala was removed from the city of Riga and merged with the health resorts Sloka and Ķemeri to establish Jūrmalas pilsēta (City of Jūrmala).[1] In publications dating from the Soviet period, the city name was occasionally spelled in English as "Yurmala", a back-transliteration from Russian Юрмала.

As a result of the administrative territorial reform of Latvia in 2009, Jūrmala became one of the republican cities of Latvia (Republikas pilsētas), and is currently (2011) the fifth largest by population.

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