Estonia

Estonia (older English spelling Esthonia; Estland in German and several other Germanic languages), officially the Republic of Estonia (Estonian: Eesti or Eesti Vabariik), is a country in Northern Europe. Estonia has land borders to the south with Latvia and to the east with Russia. It is separated from Finland in the north by the Gulf of Finland and from Sweden in the west by the Baltic Sea.

The name Estonia is thought to be originating from the Roman historian Tacitus as Aestii were a people he described in his book Germania (ca. 98 CE). Eistland in the ancient Scandinavian sagas and Estia, Hestia and Estonia in early Latin sources are other origins of the modern national name of Estonia.

The Estonian people are ethnically related to the Finns. The Estonian language is one of the Finno-Ugric languages and as such, along with its close relative Finnish as well as Hungarian, is one of the few official languages of the European Union that is not of Indo-European origin.

Human settlement in Estonia became possible 11,000 to 13,000 years ago, when the ice from the last glacial era melted away.