The Baltic States today are Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Only Latvia and Lithuania actually speak a Baltic language and have a Baltic culture in the strict sense; the Estonian language is closer to Finnish, and is not a Baltic language. Nevertheless, all three are small nations today, and it is convenient to call them all Baltic.

The Baltic states lie on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, and are bordered by Poland, Russia, Belarus, and Finland. The map above at right shows the area of the Baltic states today in deep red. A much larger area was controlled by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 15th and 16th centuries, when it held much of what is today Belarus and some of the Ukraine. Latvia and Estonia were ruled by the Teutonic Knights, and the dominant culture was Livonian. Lithuania has since become a much smaller country, and the Livonians have been subsumed by Latvian culture and language.

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