Bauska

Bauska stands where the Mūsa and Mēmele meet to form the Lielupe. The Livonian Order built a castle on the narrow tongue of land between the rivers in the fifteenth century, and a small settlement grew in the protection of its walls. Around 1580 Duke Gotthard Kettler moved the settlement to the site of the later old town; it acquired town rights before 1609.

Bauska prospered under the dukes of Courland and Semigallia, but war repeatedly reached its walls. Swedish forces attacked during the Polish–Swedish wars, and in 1706 a retreating Russian army blew up the castle. Plague followed in 1711, killing half the population. By the early nineteenth century the town was recovering its role as a trading centre between Riga and Lithuania.