Tallinn
Capital and largest city of Estonia
Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. Located on a bay in northern Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, it has a population of 452,563 as of 2026, making it the third most-populous city in the Baltics. As of 2024, the population of the Tallinn metropolitan area is estimated at 646,315. Tallinn is the main governmental, financial, industrial, and cultural centre of Estonia. It is located 187 kilometres (116 mi) northwest of the country's second largest city, Tartu, however, only 80 kilometres (50 mi) south of Helsinki, the capital city of Finland. It is also 320 kilometres (200 mi) west of Saint Petersburg, Russia, 300 kilometres (190 mi) north of Riga, Latvia, and 380 kilometres (240 mi) east of Stockholm, Sweden. From the 13th century until the first half of the 20th century, Tallinn was known in most of the world by variants of its other historical name, Reval.
“Tallinn” enters the record as capital and largest city of Estonia. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Tallinn, Capital and largest can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Tallinn” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Tallinn, Capital and largest provides the most credible route into that argument.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The first chronological checks are 2026 and 2024.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Tallinn”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Tallinn primary sources, Tallinn archive and Tallinn research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Tallinn”?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Tallinn” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.