In
Lithuania, there are 103
cities (in
Lithuanian:
singular – miestas,
plural – miestai). The term city is defined by the
Parliament 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 called miestelis (plural miesteliai) which is translated as "towns". Even smaller settlements (villages) are called kaimas (plural kaimai). Often the official status is not clear and people refer to both towns and villages as gyvenvietė (plural gyvenvietės) which in essence means settlement.
The cities started to form in the 13th–14th centuries together with the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The first to receive city rights was
Klaipėda. According to medieval law, a city could have its own
fairs, taverns,
guilds, courts, etc. Some former cities lost their status and are now just towns or villages, for example
Kernavė and
Merkinė. 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 example
Kaišiadorys,
Vievis,
Radviliškis,
Ignalina and
Mažeikiai. In the 20th century, cities grew next to big industrial centers, for example
Visaginas,
Elektrėnai and
Naujoji Akmenė. Five cities (
Birštonas,
Druskininkai,
Neringa,
Palanga and
Anykščiai) have a special resort status.
Most of the cities are small. There are only 14 cities with a population of more than 20,000. Cities are quite evenly spread out through the territory of Lithuania. At the
2001 census 66.7% of the population lived in cities, and the percentage is growing. During the
2021 census it increased to 68.2% of 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 the
census of 2001.
"City rights" means rights to self-government. For older cities this is usually the date when
Magdeburg rights were granted. Most dates are obtained from
Lithuanian Wikipedia which assembled the information from several different sources. One of the main sources was
Population 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 made these changes:
On December 16, 2002
Juodupė lost city status and became a town
On February 25, 2003
Kulautuva lost city status and became a town
On April 8, 2003
Tyruliai lost city status and became a town
Cities with no image of a
coat 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 is
Trakai town, which has different coat of arms from its municipality (
Trakai District Municipality).