1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
Latvia
Compare this sourced profile of Riga, Latvia before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Riga—742,572, Europe/Riga, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
Wikidata's localized description: capital and largest city of Latvia.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Riga is GeoNames ID 456172. Its recorded administrative path is Riga → Latvia, and GeoNames classifies the place as a capital of a political entity. Riga occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2019-09-05; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Riga ranks 740 by recorded population. Inside the 1 selected Latvia entries it ranks 1; inside the 125 entries in its broad region it ranks 54. Its 742,572 population value is 1.00 times the 742,572 median for the country cohort and 1.12 times the 664,046 regional median. Riga is rank 1 among the 1 selected Latvia entries, so a percentage band would overstate this small cohort. Riga's recorded value stays within one quarter of the country-cohort median used here. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Riga's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Vilnius at 261.435 km with 542,366 recorded people; Helsinki at 361.647 km with 658,864 recorded people; Minsk at 402.867 km with 1,742,124 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 141.432 km. Compared with Vilnius, Riga's recorded population is 1.37 times as large. Against Riga, Vilnius follows Vilnius → Lithuania in the source. Its point has lower latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the selected Lithuania cohort rather than Latvia, uses Europe/Vilnius instead of Europe/Riga, and carries the same capital of a political entity class. Its recorded population is below Riga's. Against Riga, Helsinki follows Helsinki sub-region → Uusimaa → Finland in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the selected Finland cohort rather than Latvia, uses Europe/Helsinki instead of Europe/Riga, and carries the same capital of a political entity class. Its recorded population is below Riga's. Against Riga, Minsk follows Minsk City → Belarus in the source. Its point has lower latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the selected Belarus cohort rather than Latvia, uses Europe/Minsk instead of Europe/Riga, and carries the same capital of a political entity class. Its recorded population is above Riga's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 1,079 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Riga's nearest-coordinate gap belongs to the wider half of atlas distances. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 456172, the coordinate pair 56.9460 / 24.1059, country rank 1 of 1, and neighbor GeoNames 593116 at 261.435 km bind Riga to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Riga's reference point is 56.9460° north and 24.1059° east. The IANA identifier Europe/Riga is shared by 1 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPLC is shared by 129 rows. Riga's row carries both second- and first-order administrative labels. Riga's point falls in the higher-latitude coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Riga's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Riga, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Riga's closest other entries in this atlas are Vilnius (261.435 km), Helsinki (361.647 km), Minsk (402.867 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Riga, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2019-09-05; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.