Republic of Estonia
Capital: Tallinn
Area: 45.339 km2
Official language: Estonian
Government: Parliamentary republic
Population: 1,311,759 (01.01.2016)
Time zone: GMT +2 in winter
GMT +3 in summer
Currency: Euro (€)
Membership: European Union, NATO, OECD, WTO, Schengen Area
Distances from Tallinn: Helsinki 85 km, Riga 307 km, St. Petersburg 395 km, Stockholm 405 km, Vilnius 605 km
Climate: Annual Weather Averages. July is the hottest month in Tallinn with an average temperature of 18°C (64°F) and the coldest is February at -5°C (23°F). The wettest month is November with an average of 55mm of rain.
Tallinn
Already in Medieval times Tallinn was famous and rich Hanseatic town for trade between East and West. Today, Tallinn is Estonia’s important financial and business centre[KL1] . Half of Estonia’s companies are located in and around the capital, and over half of Estonia’s GDP is generated in Tallinn. Tallinn is also known as a technology-based entrepreneurial environment, and provides a place for development centres of international companies and startups to operate.
Good to know
- Estonia was the first country in the world to use online political voting (NBC News);
- The Estonian state currently offers 600 e-services to its citizens and 2,400 to businesses (The Economist);
- Estonia has the world’s first e-residency. It enables foreigners to take advantage of the same e-services (incl. registering companies, and providing digital signatures). So electronically registering a company/start-up takes only a few minutes (Estonian e-Residency);
- Estonia is considered to be the country with the highest percentage of start-ups per capita (Start up Estonia);
- As of April 2016, 99,9% of bank transfers were made electronically, 98% of the income declarations for 2015 were submitted through the e-Tax Board, 97% of all prescriptions are written in digital form (Tallinn – facts and figures);
- Tallinn has over 30 WiFi hotspots for its citizens and visitors, most of which are in the city centre and the Old Town, many are near popular tourist attractions. The network, TallinnWifi, may be connected to for free and it has a download speed of 15Mbps per hotspot (Free for Tourists);
- Tallinn is home for many companies and organisations. For example European IT agency, the NATO cooperative cyber defence centre of excellence, Transferwise, Skype etc,
- According to Richard Branson “Tallinn regularly tops the list as one of the most intelligent cities according to the Intelligent Community Forum. After all, it is the city that gave us Skype. But it isn’t just start-up and kooky entrepreneurs that the city uses tech for. It’s everywhere.” (Incorporate in Estonia)