Klaipeda State Seaport lies on the shores of the southeast Baltic Sea where the Curonian Lagoon and the Neman River meet in Lithuania. Klaipeda State Seaport is about 230 kilometers southwest of the Port of Riga in Latvia and some 123 nautical miles southeast of Sweden's Port of Ronehamn. Klaipeda State Seaport is Lithuania's only seaport, and it is home to large shipbuilding yards that make floating docks and fishing trawlers. Ferries connecting to Sweden and Germany operate from Klaipeda State Seaport. In 2007, about 186 thousand people lived in Klaipeda State Seaport.

Klaipeda State Seaport supports a large deep-sea fishing industry, and it has a fish cannery. Other important industries in Klaipeda State Seaport include the manufacture of amber jewelry, paper, cotton textiles, and radio and telephone parts. Timber working is also important to the local economy. Being near the Baltic coast's white sand beaches and the country's most popular coastal resort of Palanga, Klaipeda State Seaport is growing as a popular tourist destination. After the early 1990s when over 207 thousand people lived there, Klaipeda State Seaport's population began to shrink.

Historians believe that Baltic tribes had a settlement on the site of the modern Klaipeda State Seaport as long ago as the 7th Century. In the middle 13th Century, the Teutonic Knights, accompanied by crusaders from Lubeck, occupied the Sambian Peninsula some 100 kilometers southwest of the current Klaipeda State Seaport. The knights established a fort called Memelburg that came to be known as Memel Castle, and the fort housed troops from the Teutonic Order. A small port was established next to the castle for merchant boats from Lubeck and Bremen.

In 1255, indigenous Sambians attempted and failed to take the fort/castle. By 1259, they surrendered, and Memel then became a colony for settlers from Holstein, Lubeck, and Dortmund. With a cathedral and parochial churches, the future Klaipeda State Seaport became the main city of the Diocese of Curonia.

In 1323, a Lithuanian army besieged Memel after they conquered the surrounding town. Destroying Sambia, they forced the Knights to sue for a truce. The Teutonic Order's Livonian branch was replaced by knights from the Prussian branch in 1328, but continuing attacks by the Lithuanians slowed the future Klaipeda State Seaport's growth and development. In 1379, the Lithuanian tribes sacked the town and the castle, and they attacked workers trying to rebuild the castle in 1389.

The 1422 Treaty of Melno established a formal border between the Teutonic Order and Lithuania's Grand Duchy that held for the following five centuries until 1919. The new town, as part of the Grand Duchy, received city rights in 1475.

When Memel adopted Lutheranism in 1525, the Duchy of Prussia was created as a fief of Poland. This began a long era of prosperity for the Klaipeda State Seaport and the city. The port served Lithuania, exporting profitable wheat. A defense system was built around the town beginning in 1627, changing both its status and its prospects.

Sweden occupied Klaipeda State Seaport several times from 1629 until 1635 during the Polish-Swedish War and the Thirty Years' War. After the Northern Wars, the Treaty of Konigsberg divided revenues from Klaipeda State Seaport with Sweden. In 1660, Prussia gained independence from Sweden and Poland. In 1678, Swedish troops invaded the area but could not capture the fortress of Memel.

By the early 1700s, Memel was one of Prussia's strongest fortresses, and the future Klaipeda State Seaport became part of the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1743, Klaipeda gained its first timber trade office, and Klaipeda State Seaport soon became a well-known timber trading port for the Baltic Sea region that could accommodate more than 300 boats at a time. In 1757 during the Seven Years' War, Russian troops captured the fort and, from 1757 until 1762, Klaipeda State Seaport was controlled by the Russian Empire. After the war, the town grew while the fortress fell into decay.

In 1773, Memel became part of East Prussia. The combination of high duties in Riga and lax customs in Memel attracted traders from England to establish sawmills in the future Klaipeda State Seaport. In 1784, over half of the ships that arrived in the Klaipeda State Seaport were English. Over the next century, wood manufacturing brought revenues and stability to Klaipeda State Seaport. Great Britain used timber exports from Klaipeda State Seaport for the Royal Navy. In 1792, over 750 British ships took lumber from the Lithuanian forests through Memel, the future Klaipeda State Seaport.

By 1800, the Klaipeda State Seaport was importing salt, iron, and herrings and exporting a much larger volume of corn, flax, hemp, and timber. The 1815 Encyclopedia Britannica reported that Memel had the best harbor in the Baltic. The future Klaipeda State Seaport was the temporary capital of the Kingdom of Prussia during the Napoleonic Wars. King Frederick William III's court and his government lived there in 1807-1808. It was here that the King signed the October Edict abolishing serfdom in Prussia, stimulating many reforms.

Under Bonaparte's Continental System in the early 19th Century, the area surrounding Klaipeda State Seaport suffered economically. After Germany was unified into the German Empire in 1871, Memel was the most northerly city in Germany. The town surrounding the future Klaipeda State Seaport began to grow as the industrial revolution and urbanization processes reached Prussia in the latter half of the 19th Century.

Because German investments in the province of East Prussia focused on Konigsberg, Klaipeda State Seaport stagnated. With scarce heavy industry, growth slowed to a crawl even though the timber industry continued to be central to the economy.

By 1900, steamer routes were active between Memel and Cranz and Tilsit. A railway was built connecting Insterburg to St. Petersburg, with Memel on the route, giving the future Klaipeda State Seaport a direct connection to Konigsberg. A 1910 German census reported that almost 150 thousand people lived in the Klaipeda State Seaport area, half of whom spoke Lithuanian. While Germans dominated in the town and larger villages, Lithuanians dominated the rural areas.

After World War I, Klaipeda State Seaport was made a protectorate of the Allies under the Treaty of Versailles. The territory was governed by an autonomous representative government under a French High Commissioner with the goal of becoming self-governing.

In 1923, Lithuania invaded the Klaipeda State Seaport region with weapons supplied by the Germans. The French made weak efforts to resist the invasion. The city was annexed by Lithuania and given the name Klaipeda with tremendous results for the Lithuanian economy. The region accounted for as much as 30% of the whole country's production. However, the region's economic importance declined when Germany imposed economic sanctions.

In 1924, the Klaipeda Convention was signed in Paris, handing the Klaipeda State Seaport to the Lithuanian State's Port Directorate. From 1924 until 1939, Klaipeda State Seaport flourished. New quays were built, new marine businesses were established, and shipping began to grow.

As Lithuanians entered the area, conflicts between native inhabitants of Klaipeda State Seaport and the new residents increased. In 1934, German workers were fired, and Germans were accused of treason. German newspapers were suppressed, and some German political candidates had their citizenship revoked so they could not be elected. In 1937, Lithuanian authorities seized German lands and public buildings. The local Klaipeda State Seaport population continued to resist Lithuanian rule, so much so that the Lithuanian troops were confined to their barracks and the native German police were keeping public order.

In 1939, Nazi Germany's Foreign Minister demanded that Lithuania surrender the Klaipeda State Seaport region to German control. Lithuania submitted in exchange for the right to use Klaipeda State Seaport's facilities. Adolf Hitler had waited on a battleship for the surrender, and he sailed into the harbor to give a speech from a theater balcony.

As the end of World War II neared, German inhabitants of Klaipeda State Seaport fled. Those who chose to stay were either killed or driven out of Klaipeda State Seaport. The Soviet Red Army took the city in January 1945. The first ship to call at Klaipeda State Seaport after World War II was the military Luban. By the end of 1945, ten vessels had called at port.

After the war, the territory was incorporated into the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, beginning a new era in Klaipeda State Seaport's history. Taking advantage of the leading ice-free port in the Eastern Baltic area, the Soviets transformed Klaipeda State Seaport into the biggest fishing-marine base in their European territories. They built a huge shipyard, dockyards, and a fishing port.

During the Soviet period, there were three ports in Klaipeda: Klaipeda River and Fishing Port, Nemunas Shipping Port, and Klaipeda Commercial Seaport. The Sea Fishing Fleet was established later in Klaipeda State Seaport, supplying fish to much of the Soviet Union's European population. In 1969, vessel repair operations began at the new Western Ship Repair Yard in Klaipeda State Seaport, and the Lithuanian Shipping Company was established with control of the Commercial Seaport. The navy fleet was established within the Commercial Seaport. For many years after World War II, the navy fleet transported captured property from Germany to the Soviet Union and Poland.

By 1989, over 200 thousand people lived in Klaipeda State Seaport, most of the new citizens having arrived from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania. Lithuanians became the dominant ethnic group. Even so, Klaipeda State Seaport still has the highest percentage of people in Lithuania whose native language is Russian.

In the 1980s, the largest project in Klaipeda State Seaport was undertaken. The International Ferry Terminal Klaipeda-Mukran, then the biggest rail ferry in the world, was built to serve ferries used to move Soviet military equipment and personnel.

After the 1970s, Klaipeda State Seaport became important to economies outside the USSR. Klaipeda State Seaport engaged in cultural activities that had been discouraged (for example, the Sea Festival). Lithuania became independent from the Soviet Union in 1990.

The State Enterprise Klaipeda State Seaport Authority was founded in 1991 by the Lithuanian Government. Before independence in 1990, two seaports existed on the site of today's Klaipeda State Seaport: the commercial seaport and the fishing port. The decree creating the port authority also consolidated the ports. In 1992, Klaipeda won status of a state seaport.

In 1996, a law was passed stating that the land and water, quays, hydro-technical equipment, navigation routes, canals, and infrastructure of Klaipeda State Seaport belong to the state and cannot be privatized. The state manages all of these with the objective of developing Klaipeda State Seaport, maintaining its competitiveness, and increasing cargo-handling volumes. The SE Klaipeda State Seaport Authority is responsible for:

• coordinating the protection of Klaipeda State Seaport and port users, maintaining and handling reserve port properties,
• using and managing state-owned property,
• leasing port land and collecting port dues,
• organizing rescue operations,
• planning and implementing port strategy and projects, including scientific research,
• review and approve construction/re-construction plans and technical conditions,
• protecting Klaipeda State Seaport from pollution and eliminating existing pollution,
• building and using port infrastructure,
• maintaining port basin and berth depths,
• coordinating with municipal institutions on infrastructure developments,
• maintaining non-leased port properties, and
• providing social and utility services for seamen.

Klaipeda State Seaport is the only seaport in Lithuania, and it is the fastest-growing seaport on the Baltic Sea.Klaipeda State Seaport is constantly being modernized, and more cruise ships, passengers, and cargoes arrive there each year. In 2008, cargo throughput in Klaipeda State Seaport reached an historic record.

Klaipeda State Seaport is at the crossroads of the international transportation corridors between Europe and Asia. Klaipeda State Seaport is the Eastern Baltic seaport nearest to the ports in Northern Europe and Southern Scandinavia. Klaipeda State Seaport is a leader for container-handling in the Baltic States, and it specializes in smooth inter-modal transport of cargoes and passengers. Klaipeda State Seaport is ice-free throughout the year.

More than 800 types of companies engaged in port-related activities employ over 23 thousand people in the Klaipeda State Seaport area. Klaipeda State Seaport directly contributes 4.5% of the country's gross domestic product.

In 2008, over 8300 vessels called in Klaipeda State Seaport, including 2766 bulk carriers, 524 tankers, 854 ferries, and 49 passenger ships. Klaipeda State Seaport handled a total of 29.9 million tons of cargo in 2008, and the Butinge Terminal handled over nine million tons of cargo. Cargoes through Klaipeda State Seaport included 21.1 million tons of imports and 7.7 million tons of exports.

Cargoes through Klaipeda State Seaport in 2008 included nearly 11 million tons of liquid bulk, 9.7 million tons of dry bulk, 9.2 million tons of general cargo. General cargoes in the Klaipeda State Seaport included 3.5 million tons of containerized cargo, 3.6 million tons of roll-on/roll-off cargo, and 2.0 million tons of other general cargo.

Klaipeda State Seaport cargo throughput categories included oil products (9.4 million tons), fertilizers (7.2 million tons), containers (3.5 million tons), minerals and construction materials (1.3 million tons), timber (957 thousand tons), metal scrap (636 thousand tons), sugar (527 thousand tons), ferroalloys (438 thousand tons), perishable products (376 thousand tons), grain and fodder (371 thousand tons), and peat (148 thousand tons). Containerized cargoes through Klaipeda State Seaport included 184 thousand TEUs in exports and 189.3 thousand TEUs of imports. In 2008, 276.6 thousand passengers (not all on cruise ships) arrived at Klaipeda State Seaport.

The entrance channel to Klaipeda State Seaport is 15 meters deep, and the inner internal channel is from 13 to 14.5 meters deep. Klaipeda State Seaport can accept large dry-cargo vessels of up to 80 thousand DWT and tankers up to 150 thousand DWT.

Klaipeda State Seaport contains 28 specialized cargo-handling terminals, including terminals for oil products (2), liquid fertilizers (2), other liquid cargoes (3), bulk fertilizers (3), agricultural products (2), other bulk cargoes (3), containers (2), roll-on/roll-off cargoes (2), refrigerated cargoes (4), timber, (3), and other general cargo (2).

The Cruise Vessel Terminal in Klaipeda State Seaport was built in 2003, beginning a new era of cruise shipping. That year, 30 cruise ships and nine thousand cruise passengers visited Klaipeda State Seaport. In 2007, 65 cruise ships brought 37 thousand passengers to Klaipeda State Seaport. The terminal covers 1.2 hectares and can accommodate vessels 315 meters long with draft of 8.5 meters. This Klaipeda State Seaport terminal offers hotels, restaurants, bars, souvenir shops, currency exchange, telephone and mail services, internet, and ATMs. Cruise business has grown so quickly that the Klaipeda State Seaport is building a new Passenger and Cargo Terminal in the city center. To be completed in 2011, the new terminal will accommodate cruise vessels and passenger and roll-on/roll-off ferries.

Also opening in 2011 will be a new Public Logistics Centre in the Klaipeda State Seaport to provide warehousing, packaging, sorting, and labeling of cargoes. This hub will coordinate inter-modal transport. Eventually covering 336 hectares, the center will be in southern Klaipeda adjacent to Klaipeda State Seaport. The government will fund infrastructure, and private stakeholders will finance the terminals and warehouses.

In order to provide safe berthing space for yachts, launches, and other small boats, Klaipeda State Seaport will construct a new quay in the southern part of the port, located so that small boats can avoid the navigation channel and turning basin used by commercial traffic. The new Klaipeda State Seaport quay will offer 690 mooring points, and a yachting school will be located there. The new quay is also scheduled for completion in 2011.

The resort town and ancient fishermen's settlement of Dventoji is located about 35 kilometers north of Klaipeda State Seaport. At one time, it was a busy and competitive seaport, but it has fallen into disrepair. To be completed in 2014, the Port of Dventoji will be rehabilitated for the use of local fishermen as well as specialized marine services like rescue, oil spill and environmental response, fire fighting, fish breeding, and coast guard activities.

As Lithuania's third largest city with a history influenced by many cultures, Klaipeda is much more than a seaport. While it is a modern city, its Old Town holds rebuilt quaint merchants' homes and warehouses with their original timber beams. Klaipeda State Seaport offers several interesting and exciting attractions that visitors of all ages will enjoy. It has long beaches of white sand, pine forests, and urban entertainment that will keep visitors busy and satisfied.

Lying on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, Klaipeda State Seaport has a cool climate where winds and storms are frequent, and weather can change quickly. Summers are warm but comfortable, with high temperatures averaging 20 °C (68 °F) in July and August. Winters in Klaipeda State Seaport can be cold, with average lows of -5 °C (23 °F) in January and February. Temperatures can reach as high as 30 °C (86 °F) in the summer or as low as -18 °C (0 °F) in the winter. The wettest month is November, and heavy rains also fall from August through October. This northern location gets plenty of snow, and snowstorms have been known to immobilize Klaipeda State Seaport.

Just 26 kilometers north of Klaipeda State Seaport is Palanga, the country's biggest resort. Each summer, throngs of tourists arrive to take advantage of its beaches and its maritime character. Palanga has many restaurants, bars, rides, and entertainment opportunities, including an Amber Museum with large and beautiful botanic gardens on the grounds of the Tiskeviciai Palace.

The Lithuanian Maritime Museum in the Klaipeda State Seaport is part of a complex that contains the Aquarium, Curonian Spit Nature Museum, and Dolphinarium. The museum focuses on the history of navigation and shipping and marine biology, and there are shows and educational activities for school children in the Dolphinarium. The 19th Century Nerija Fort is home to the Klaipeda State Seaport Aquarium, the history of navigation exhibit, and the exposition of marine creatures (local species, seabirds, and mammals). The Exposition of Marine Fauna holds a huge collection mollusk shells, one of the richest collections in Europe. At the Museum's outdoor pools, visitors will enjoy native seals, sea lions, and penguins. In the Nerija Fort, a historical monument on its own merits, is the exposition of navigation history that holds ship models, archeological artifacts, and documentary information about the history of navigation in Klaipeda State Seaport and Lithuania. The museum's Ethnographic Fisherman's Farmstead that contains a house, cellar, bathhouse, granary, cattle-shed, curing-house, and poles for drying fish and fishing nets. The farmstead represents the life of a middle class farm family in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, including a building devoted to the evolution of fishing in the era.

The Clock and Watch Museum is part of the Lithuanian Art Museum Department in Klaipeda State Seaport. It contains three exhibits: clock and watch construction, clock and watch-making styles, and a sundial park. Opened in 1994, the Clock and Watch Museum exhibits include clock-makers' studio equipment, clock and watch parts, and clocks and watches made in the beginning of the 20th Century. Exhibits include clockmaker's studio equipment, the parts of clocks and watches, and, of course clocks and watches, which were made at the beginning of that century. Lithuania's first clock-makers were members of the hammersmith, locksmith, and coppersmith guilds. They produced time-pieces equal to any made Europe.

The Botanical Garden of Klaipeda University is located in the northern section of Klaipeda State Seaport in the Dane River valley. It was here that Prussian and Russian monarchs met from the time of Frederic I and Peter the Great. A park was created to commemorate these meetings, and the Botanical Garden was established in 1993. The garden features trees and woody plants, medicinal and spice plants, and non-woody herbaceous ornamental plants. A rock garden was created for trees, shrubs, and flowers. While visiting the Botanic Garden, visitors can purchase (wholesale and retail) decorative plants, get advice about landscaping or medicinal plants, and take guided tours of the Garden.