Vilnius is the largest city of Lithuania with urban population over 700,000 inhabitantsDetailed map ofcultural regions of Lithuania including all of its cities and towns
InLithuania, there are 103cities (miestai). The termcity is defined by theParliament of Lithuania as a compact urban area with more than 3,000 people, of whom at least two-thirds work in the industry or service sector. Settlements with a population of less than 3,000 but with historical city status are still considered to be cities. Smaller settlements are known astowns (miesteliai), and even smaller settlements are known asvillages (kaimai). Often the official status of these smaller settlements are unclear, and people simply refer to both towns and villages as settlements (gyvenvietės).
The cities started to form between the 13th and 14th centuries together with theGrand Duchy of Lithuania. The first to receive city rights wasKlaipėda. According to medieval law, a city could have its ownfairs, taverns,guilds, courts, etc. Some former cities lost their status and are now just towns or villages, for exampleKernavė andMerkinė. Most of the cities in Lithuania were established before the 18th century. Their location is mostly determined by trade and transportation routes. Some of the newer cities grew because of railroad construction, for exampleKaišiadorys,Vievis,Radviliškis,Ignalina andMažeikiai. In the 20th century, new cities grew primarily to service state developed industrial complexes, for exampleVisaginas,Elektrėnai andNaujoji Akmenė.
Of over 100 cities, only 14 have populations of over 20,000. Five cities (Birštonas,Druskininkai,Neringa,Palanga andAnykščiai) have a special resort status. Cities are quite evenly spread out through the territory of Lithuania. At the2001 census, 66.7% of the population lived in cities. At the2021 census the proportion had increased slightly to 68.2% of the population.
The smallest cities in Lithuania that have below 1,000 inhabitants. The counties are ranked by number of cities and further ranked by the population of the largest one. Cities are ranked by the size of the population.
Population sizes are given according to Department of Statistics to the Government of the Republic of Lithuania (Statistics Lithuania) data for thecensus of 2001.
"City rights" means rights to self-government. For older cities this is usually the date whenMagdeburg rights were granted. Most dates are obtained fromLithuanian Wikipedia which assembled the information from several different sources. One of the main sources wasPopulation Statistics. This information cannot be completely trusted.
At the time of the 2001 census, there were 106 cities in Lithuania. The Government of the Republic of Lithuania has since made these changes:
On December 16, 2002Juodupė lost city status and became a town[1]
On February 25, 2003Kulautuva lost city status and became a town[2]
On April 8, 2003Tyruliai lost city status and became a town[3]
Cities with no image of acoat of arms shown do not have one confirmed by the President of Lithuania. Municipalities share coats of arms with their capitals, with the exception of cities which are capitals of more than one municipality (i.e. a city municipality and a district municipality), in which case the city municipality shares the coat of arms with the city, while the district municipality has its own distinct coat of arms. Another notable exception isTrakai town, which has different coat of arms from its municipality (Trakai District Municipality).
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