Riga

Riga was a Hanseatic trading city at the mouth of the Daugava on the Baltic. After its defeat by the Livonian Order in 1330, the knights built a castle inside the city, which remained under their influence in 1337.

Riga embraced the Reformation in 1522 and became a free imperial city after the Order collapsed in 1561. A treaty placed it under Poland-Lithuania in 1581; Sweden conquered it in 1621. Peter the Great's armies took Riga in 1710, a transfer confirmed by the Treaty of Nystad in 1721.