Ida-Viru County

Ida-Viru County, called Ida-Viru maakond in Estonian, is one of the 15 counties of Estonia and the most northeastern part of the country. It holds large deposits of oil shale, the main mineral mined in Estonia, which is used to make shale oil and to fuel thermal power plants. The county seat is the town of Jõhvi, while Narva is the largest town by population and the third-largest city in Estonia after Tallinn and Tartu. It borders Lääne-Viru County to the west, Jõgeva County to the southwest and Russia, with Leningrad Oblast, to the east. The 2021 census counted 132,741 people, of whom 73.25 percent were ethnic Russians, which makes it the only Estonian county with a Russian majority. The county was set up as Kohtla-Järve County in January 1990 and renamed Ida-Viru County in March of that year, and its county government ceased to exist in the 2017 administrative reform. It is divided into seven municipalities, four urban and three rural, with 217 villages.