SISSEJUHATUS
Antud töö eesmärk on
saada oskused referaadi vormistamiseks;
saada tagasisidet oma oskustest;
kinnistada loengutes õpitut.
Joonis 1. Eesti asukoht1
Estonia (vt. Joonis 1), officially the Republic of Estonia (Estonian: Eesti Vabariik), is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia (343 km), and to the east by Lake Peipus and Russia (338.6 km). Across the Baltic Sea lies Sweden in the west and Finland in the north. The territory of Estonia covers 45,227 km2 (17,462 sq mi), and is influenced by a humid continental climate.
Estonia is a democratic parliamentary republic divided into fifteen counties, with its capital and largest city being Tallinn. With a population of 1.3 million, it is one of the least-populous member states of the European Union, Eurozone and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The Estonians are a Finnic people, and the official language, Estonian, is a Finno-Ugric language closely related to Finnish, and distantly to Hungarian and to the Sami languages. Estonia is also a part of the Schengen Area.
A developed country with an advanced, high-income economy, Estonia is a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It ranks very high in the Human Development Index, and performs favourably in measurements of economic freedom, civil liberties, education, and press freedom (third in the world in 2012). Estonia is often described as one of the most wired countries in Europe, and is ranked 15th in the UN e-Government Readiness Index.
One hypothesis is that the modern name of Estonia originated from the Aesti described by the Roman historian Tacitus in his Germania (ca. 98 AD).
Ancient Scandinavian sagas refer to a land called Eistland, as the country is still called in Icelandic, and close to the Danish, German, Dutch, Swedish and Norwegian term Estland for the country. Early Latin and other ancient versions of the name are Estia and Hestia.