Valmieras apriņķis

Valmiera County (Latvian: Valmieras apriņķis, German: Kreis Wolmar, Russian: Вольмарскій уѣздъ, romanized: Vol'marskiy uyezd) was a historic county of Latvia. Its capital was Valmiera (Wolmar).

Valmiera County Valmieras apriņķis Kreis Wolmar Вольмарскій уѣздъ
County
Location in the Governorate of Livonia
Country	Russian Empire Latvia
Russian Governorate	Livonia
Established	1745
Abolished	1949
Capital	Wolmar
Area
• Total	4,959.78 km2 (1,914.98 sq mi)
Population  (1897)
• Total	112,826
• Density	23/km2 (59/sq mi)

Valmieras apriņķis (Wolmarsche Kreis) on the map of Ludwig August Mellin (1798).

History

The county of Valmiera was created during the administrative territorial reform of the Governorate of Riga in 1783 by merging of parishes from the preexisting Kreis Riga and Kreis Pernau.

After the establishment of the Republic of Latvia in 1918, the Valmieras apriņķis^[1] existed until 1949, when the Council of Ministers of the Latvian SSR split it into the newly created districts (rajons) of Valmiera and Rūjiena (dissolved in 1959).

Demographics

At the time of the Russian Empire Census of 1897, Kreis Wolmar had a population of 112,836. Of these, 93.3% spoke Latvian, 3.2% Estonian, 2.0% German, 0.8% Russian, 0.5% Yiddish, 0.1% Romani and 0.1% Polish as their native language.^[2]

References

1. "Letonika.lv. Vārdnīcas - Latviešu—angļu vārdnīca. Apriņķis = district or county". www.letonika.lv. Retrieved 2019-10-14.
2. Первая всеобщая перепись населения Российской Империи 1897 г.