Latvia for the next 45 years. The peaceful Singing Revolution, starting in 1987, called for Baltic emancipation from Soviet rule and condemning the Communist regime's illegal takeover. It ended with the Declaration on the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia on 4 May 1990, and restoring "de facto" independence on 21 August 1991. Latvia is a democratic sovereign state, parliamentary republic and a very highly developed country according to the United Nations Human Development Index. Its capital Riga served as the European Capital of Culture in 2014. Latvian is the official language. Latvia is a unitary state, divided into
Geology of Latvia Geology of Latvia The geology of Latvia includes an ancient Archean and Proterozoic crystalline basement overlain with Neoproterozoic volcanic rocks and numerous sedimentary rock sequences from the Paleozoic, some from the Mesozoic and many from the recent Quaternary past. Latvia is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. Several hundred boreholes have returned data about the Precambrian crystalline basement of Latvia, indicating young Middle Proterozoic intrusive rocks such as 1.65 billion year old rapakivi granite or 1.82 billion year old granodiorite in the northeast. Most basement probably formed before the Svecofennian orogeny, between the Archean and Proterozoic. The