Curonian Spit
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How it came to be
The Curonian Spit is a narrow peninsula of sand dunes, 98 km long and 0.4 to 4 km wide, separating the Baltic Sea from the Curonian Lagoon; its northern half belongs to Lithuania and its southern half to Russia. About 5,000 years ago drifting sand built a great dune ridge, which forest later covered. People have lived on it since prehistoric times.
In the 14th century the Teutonic Knights built a castle at Rossitten. Later logging stripped the forest, the dunes began to march toward the lagoon, and the oldest villages were buried. In 1757, with trees also cut to build boats, whole villages disappeared under the sand.
Prussia began replanting and stabilising the dunes in 1825, and by the end of the 19th century a protective dune ran along the sea shore. UNESCO credits the spit's survival to ceaseless human effort. It was inscribed in 2000 as a site shared by Lithuania and Russia.
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