Baltoscandia provided by the Panevėžys city municipality, but the functions of the academy did not meet the criteria of the functions of the mentioned municipality. The Nordic-Baltic Eight or "NB8", where 8 stands for the number of States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Sweden). Baltoscandia The Baltoscandian Confederation or Baltoscandia is a geopolitical concept of a Baltic–Scandinavian union (consisting of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). The idea was proposed by a Swedish professor Sten de Geer (1886–1933) in the journal "Geografiska Annaler" in 1928 and further developed by Professor (1893–1960), a Lithuanian scientist in
Latvia groves and wooded clusters, which afford a habitat for numerous plants and animals. Latvia has hundreds of kilometres of undeveloped seashore—lined by pine forests, dunes, and continuous white sand beaches. Latvia has the 5th highest proportion of land covered by forests in the European Union, after Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Slovenia. Forests account for or 56% of the total land area. Latvia has over 12,500 rivers, which stretch for . Major rivers include the Daugava River, Lielupe, Gauja, Venta, and Salaca, the largest spawning ground for salmon in the eastern Baltics. There are 2,256 lakes that are bigger than ,