Pre-Trip Information

Ethnographic Features

Ethnic Estonians comprise just over an estimated 65 percent of a total national population of approximately 1.3 million. Ethnic Russians account for nearly 28 percent; ethnic Ukrainians comprise about two percent. Ethnic Belorussians and ethnic Finns are also resident in Estonia.

In terms of religious affiliation, most Estonians belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church. A significant number of Russian Orthodox and Estonian Orthodox are also present. Other religious groups in Estonia include various evangelical Protestant affiliations such as Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, and Pentecostals. Roman Catholics, Methodists and Jews are also represented.

While Estonian is the official language, Russian, Ukrainian, English, Finnish, Latvian and Lithuanian are also spoken. During the Soviet era, Russian was the official language. As a consequence, today Russian is the second language of a majority of ethnic Estonians. Ethnic Slavs in Estonia often continue to speak Russian as their first language - and Estonian as their second language.

According to recent estimates, Estonians have an average life expectancy at birth of 70 years of age (64 years for males, 76 years for females). The infant mortality rate is 12.32 deaths per 1,000 live births, according to recent estimates. Also, surveys suggest that nearly 100 percent of Estonians, age 15 and over, can read and write. About 4.3 of GDP is spent on health expenditures in this country; about 4.9 of GDP is spent on educational expenditures.  Access to education, sanitation, water, and health is regarded to be very good.

One notable measure used to determine a country's quality of life is the Human Development Index (HDI), which has been compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main arenas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In a recent ranking of 169 countries, the HDI placed Estonia in the very high human development category, at 34th place. 

Note: Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.