City
Riga
Capital of Latvia
What guided this image
- Landmarks
- St. Peter's Church; Gothic Riga Cathedral; House of the Black Heads; Vanšu Bridge; Daugava River; City Canal; Freedom Monument; Art Nouveau
- Viewpoint
- Favor the classic elevated viewpoint from the left bank of the Daugava River (such as from near the National Library of Latvia or AB Dambis), looking northeast across the wide river toward the panorama of Vecrīga, showing the river in the foreground, the Vanšu Bridge, and the famous sequence of spires (St. Peter's, Riga Dome, St. Jacob's) anchoring the middle-ground.
- Palette
- Green should be the predominant color, especially in the lush boulevard parks of Bastejkalns, weeping willows along the canal, and the oxidized copper-green spires of St. Peter's, Riga Dome, and St. Jacob's.
- Guarded against
- Avoid making Riga look like Tallinn (no high limestone cliff or castle hill; Riga is flat and riverine) or Saint Petersburg (no grand imperial canal grid).
Population742,572Wikidata: 701,977
Coordinates56.95°N, 24.11°E
Elevation6 m
Area304 km²
Time zoneEurope/RigaUTC+2
Solar noon12:24clock runs 0.4 h ahead of the sun
Through the Earth
Dig straight through the Earth from Riga and you surface in open ocean, nearest to Waitangi, New Zealand — 2,042 km from the exact antipodal point.
Nearest cities in the atlas
| Vilnius | LT | 262 km |
| Tallinn | EE | 279 km |
| Helsinki | FI | 361 km |
| Minsk | BY | 403 km |
| Stockholm | SE | 442 km |
| Saint Petersburg | RU | 490 km |
| Warsaw | PL | 561 km |
| Copenhagen | DK | 725 km |
Twinned cities
- Almaty KZ
- Amsterdam NL
- Astana KZ
- Beijing CN
- Dallas US
- Kobe JP
- Kyiv UA
- Minsk BY
- Moscow RU
- Saint Petersburg RU
- Santiago CL
- Suzhou CN
- Taipei TW
- Tallinn EE
- Tbilisi GE
- Vilnius LT
- Warsaw PL
- Yerevan AM
18 of 36 twinned cities are in this atlas. See the full network →