Ventspils county (, , ) was a historic

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

of the

Courland Governorate Courland Governorate, also known as the Province of Courland or Governorate of Kurland, and known from 1795 to 1796 as the Viceroyalty of Courland, was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') and one of the Baltic governorates of the ...

and of the

Republic of Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

. Its capital was

Ventspils Ventspils () is a state city in northwestern Latvia in the historical Courland region of Latvia, and is the sixth largest city in the country. At the beginning of 2020, Ventspils had a population of 33,906. It is situated on the Venta River and ...

(''Windau'').

History

Created from northern parts of the

Duchy of Courland and Semigallia The Duchy of Courland and Semigallia was a duchy in the Baltic states, Baltic region, then known as Livonia, that existed from 1561 to 1569 as a nominal vassal state of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and subsequently made part of the Crown of th ...

and District of Pilten after incorporation into the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. In 1819, County of Ventspils (''Kreis Windau'') became one of the ten counties of the Courland Governorate. After establishment of the Republic of Latvia in 1918, the ''Ventspils apriņķis'' existed until 1949, when the Council of Ministers of the

Latvian SSR The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (Also known as the Latvian SSR, or Latvia) was a Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republic of the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1941, and then from 1944 until 1990. The Soviet occupation of the Bal ...

split it into the newly created districts (''rajons'') of

Alsunga Alsunga (also Alšvanga, ) is a village in Alsunga Parish, Kuldīga Municipality in the Courland region of Latvia. Alsunga is the center of the Suiti, a small Catholic community in the Lutheran western part of Latvia. There are approximately 13 ...

(dissolved in 1956) and Dundaga (dissolved in 1956).

Demographics

At the time of the Russian Empire Census of 1897, ''Kreis Windau'' had a population of 48,275. Of these, 85.2% spoke Latvian, 7.9%

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

, 2.9%

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

, 2.8% Lithuanian or Livonian (Livonian-speakers were recorded in this census as Lithuanian-speakers), 0.6%

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

, 0.3%

Estonian Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also

...

, 0.2% Romani, 0.1% Polish and 0.1% Ukrainian as their native language.

References

{{coord missing, Latvia Counties of Latvia Uezds of Courland Governorate