Tallinn Old Town

Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, stands on the Baltic coast. In 1219 King Valdemar II of Denmark conquered Tallinn and northern Estonia. The town was an important port on the trade route between Novgorod and western Europe; it received Lubeck town rights in 1248 and in 1285 became the northernmost member of the Hanseatic League. In 1346 the Danish king sold it to the Teutonic Order.

On a high limestone hill, the upper town of Toompea holds the castle and the cathedral and has long been the seat of government. Below it the lower town keeps its town wall, Town Hall, pharmacy, churches, monasteries, guild buildings and merchants' houses, and the layout of its building plots survives almost intact from the 13th and 14th centuries. Many of its narrow, winding streets still carry their medieval names.

During the Second World War, under German occupation, the city was bombed by the Soviet air force on 9 and 10 March 1944 and large fires broke out. In 1966 the Old Town was made a conservation area, the first of its kind in the Soviet Union. It was inscribed in 1997, and in 2008 the property was enlarged from 60 ha to 113 ha.