Lithuania

thumb|300px|right|The flag and national anthem of Lithuania.
Lithuania [ˌlɪθuˈeɪniə], officially the Republic of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos Respublika) is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to the southwest. Lithuania is a member of NATO, the Council of Europe and of the European Union. Its population is 3.6 million. Its capital and the largest city is Vilnius. Vilnius was European Capital of Culture in 2009.
==Religion in Lithuania==
Lithuania became a Christian state in the late 14th and early 15th centuries. (See Christianization of Lithuania). The Roman Catholic Church has been the dominant faith in the country ever since. Catholic priests actively led the resistance against the communist rule of the USSR.
Islam arrived in Lithuania in the 14th century. It has long been associated with the Lipka Tatar community.
Prior to the Second World War, Lithuania's influential Jewish represented 7% of the population. There were one hundred synagogues and ten yeshivas in the capital city, Vilnius. The Jewish poulation was nearly entirely exterminated in the Holocaust.
Currently, Roman Catholics represent about 79% of Lithuania's poulation, 41% of inhabitants belong to the Orthodox Church, 0.1% follow Islam, 0.16% are Buddhists and 0.04% are adherents of Judaism.
==See also==
*Lithuanian mythology
*List of Lithuanian gods
==References==
*http://www.thedhamma.com/buddhists_in_the_world.htm
*The Complete Book of Buddha's Lists -- Explained. David N. Snyder, Ph.D., 2006.
*http://www.thedhamma.com/
==External links==
* Wikipedia article about Lithuania.
* Wikivoyage article about Lithuania.
Category:Buddhism by location
Category:Christian-Majority Countries