Narva

Narva is a city and municipality in Ida-Viru County, at the far eastern edge of Estonia. It stands on the west bank of the Narva river, which forms the international border between Estonia and Russia, so the city is defined by its position on a frontier. With a population of roughly 52,500 at the start of 2025, it is the third-largest city in Estonia after Tallinn and Tartu. The town was almost completely destroyed in 1944 during the Second World War. During the Soviet period from 1944 to 1991 its original inhabitants were not allowed to return, and workers from Russia and other parts of the Soviet Union were brought in instead. As a result the population, which was about 65 percent ethnic Estonian at the 1934 census, became overwhelmingly non-Estonian in the later twentieth century. Figures from 2013 show that under half of residents then held Estonian citizenship, with a large share holding Russian or undefined citizenship.