Tallinn, Estonia

 

Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It occupies an area of 159.2 km² (61.5 sq mi) with a population of 426,503. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, 80 km (50 mi) south of Helsinki, east of Stockholm and west of Saint Petersburg. Tallinn's Old Town is in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.It is ranked as a global city and has been listed among the top 10 digital cities in the world. The city was a European Capital of Culture for 2011, along with Turku in Finland.
Tallinn is the oldest capital city in Northern Europe. The city was known as Reval from the 13th century until 1917 and again during the Nazi invasion of Estonia from 1941 to 1944.

 

 

 

 

 

The earliest names of Tallinn include big red castle  known from East Slavic chronicles, the name possibly deriving from the Estonian mythical hero Kalev.
Up to the 13th century the Scandinavians and Henry of Livonia in his chronicle called the town Lindanisa: Lyndanisse in Danish. Lindanäs in Swedish, also mentioned as Ledenets in Old East Slavic. According to some theories the name derived from mythical Linda, the wife of Kalev and the mother of Kalevipoeg. who in an Estonian legend carried rocks to her husband's grave that formed the Toompea hill.
It has been also suggested that in the context the meaning of linda in the archaic Estonian language, that is similar to lidna in Votic, had the same meaning as linna or linn later on meaning a castle or town in English. According to the suggestion nisa would have had the same meaning as niemi (meaning peninsula in English) in an old Finnish form of the name Kesoniemi.