Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Kuressaare is the capital of Saaremaa, an Estonian island. The town, located at the Livonia Bay, has territory of about 15 sq. km and a population of about 16,000. Kuressaare that obtained the freedom of a town in 1563 has been called with different names throughout its existence. Its historic German-like name used to be Arensburg that was replaced by Kuressaare in 1917. During the Soviet period, in 1952-1988 it was called Kingissepa after the bolshevik Viktor Kingissepp who was born here. Kuressaare was the first town in Estonia where the self-governing status was restored in October 1990. Today, Kuressaare is a safe and healthy town, open for international cooperation and communication and having eight twin-towns. Twin Towns Ekenäs, Finland since 21 November 1988 Rønne, Denmark since 3 October 1991 Mariehamn, Finland since 24 October 1991 Skövde, Sweden since 23 June 1993 Vammala, Finland since 30 June 1994 Turku, Finland since 30 May 1996 Talsi, Latvia since 27 May 1998 Kuurne, Belgium since 9 August 1998 This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.