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Lithuania, country of northeastern Europe, the southernmost and largest of the three Baltic states. Lithuania was a powerful empire that dominated much of eastern Europe in the 14th–16th centuries before becoming part of the Polish-Lithuanian confederation for the next two centuries.
Underlying rock structures are of little significance for the contemporary Lithuanian terrain, which basically is a low-lying plain scraped by Ice Age glaciers that left behind thick, ridgel ike terminal deposits known as moraines. The Baltic coastal area is fringed by a region characterized by geographers as the maritime depression, which rises gradually eastward. Sand dunes line an attractive coast; the Curonian Lagoon (Lithuanian: Kuršiu Marios), almost cut off from the sea by the Curonian Spit, a thin 60-mile (100-km) sandspit, forms a distinctive feature. It is bounded by the Žemaičiai Upland to the east, which gives way to the flat expanses of the Middle Lithuanian Lowland.
The largest cities:
- Vilnius
- Trakai
- Grigiškės
- Nemenčinė
- Kaunas
- Raudondvaris
- Garliava
- Karmėlava