16 Facts About Narva

In 1944, Narva was nearly completely destroyed during the battles of World War II.

The fortified settlement at Narva Joaoru is the oldest known in Estonia, dated to around 1000 BC.

The earliest written reference of Narva is in the First Novgorod Chronicle, which in the year 1172 describes a district in Novgorod called Nerevsky or Narovsky konets.

The castle and surrounding town of Narva became a possession of the Livonian Order in 1346, after the Danish king sold its lands in Northern Estonia.

Narva remained on the list of Russian fortifications until 1863, though there was no real military need for it.

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Status of Narva was resolved in a July 1917 referendum, when the district population, at that time roughly equally divided between ethnic Russians and Estonians, voted to attach itself to the newly autonomous and soon to be independent republic of Estonia.

Narva became part of an independent Estonia in 1918, at the end of World War I The town saw fighting during the Estonian War of Independence.

Narva was effectively ethnically cleansed, as the original native inhabitants were not allowed to return after the war, and immigrant Russian-speaking workers from other parts of the USSR were brought in to populate the city.

In January 1945 Ivangorod, a town across the river which was founded in 1492 by Tsar Ivan III of Russia, was separated from Narva and was made part of the Leningrad Oblast in the Russian SFSR.

Narva took many Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war and previously popular among older russophone residents Russian TV stations were banned by the Estonian government.

On 1 January 2013 Narva's population was 59,888, down from 60,454 inhabitants a year earlier.

Between 2001 and 2008, more than 1,600 cases of HIV were registered in Narva, making it one of the worst areas in Estonia, alongside Tallinn and the rest of Ida-Viru County.

Narva has a warm-summer humid continental climate with mild to warm, rainy summers with cool nights and cold, cloudy and snowy winters.

Narva is one of the coldest settlements in Estonia, being located at the very northeast of the country and bordering Russia.

Narva is officially divided into 15 neighbourhoods: Elektrijaama, Joaoru, Kalevi, Kerese, Kreenholmi, Kudrukula, Kulgu, Olgina, Paemurru, Pahklimae, Siivertsi, Soldina, Sutthoffi, Vanalinn and Veekulgu.

Narva's skyline is dominated by the 15th-century castle, with the 51-meter-tall Pikk Hermann tower as its most prominent landmark.