Geographic coordinates: 57°00′N 25°00′E / 57°N 25°E / 57; 25

Latvia lies on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea on the level northwestern part of the rising East European platform, between Estonia and Lithuania. About 98% of the country lies under 200 m (656 ft) elevation. With the exception of the coastal plains, the ice age divided Latvia into three main regions: the morainic Western and Eastern uplands and the Middle lowlands. Latvia holds over 12,000 rivers, only 17 of which are longer than 60 miles (97 km), and over 3,000 small lakes, most of which are eutrophic. The major rivers include the Daugava, the Lielupe, the Gauja, the Venta and the Salaca. Woodlands, more than half of which are pine woods, cover around 41% of the country. Other than peat, dolomite, and limestone, natural resources are scarce. Latvia has 531 km (330 mi) of sandy coastline, and the ports of Liepāja and Ventspils provide important warm-water harbors for the Baltic coast.

Latvia is slightly larger than Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovakia, or Estonia. Its strategic location has instigated many wars between rival powers on its territory. As recently as 1944, the U.S.S.R. granted Russia the Abrene region on the Livonian frontier, which Latvia contested after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Latvia ⁱ/ˈlætviə/ (Latvian: Latvija), officially the Republic of Latvia (Latvian: Latvijas Republika), is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia (border length 343 km), to the south by Lithuania (588 km), to the east by the Russian Federation (276 km), to the southeast by Belarus (141 km), and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden. With 2,067,887 inhabitants and a territory of 64,589 km² (24,938 sq mi) it is one of the least populous and least densely populated countries of the European Union. The capital of Latvia is Riga. The official language is Latvian and the currency is called Lats (Ls). The country has a temperate seasonal climate.

The Latvians are a Baltic people, culturally related to the Lithuanians. Together with the Finno-Ugric Livs (or Livonians), the Latvians are the indigenous people of Latvia.Latvian is an Indo-European language and along with Lithuanian the only two surviving members of the Baltic branch. Indigenous minority languages are Latgalian and the nearly extinct Finno-Ugric Livonian language. In terms of geography, territory and population Latvia is the middle of three Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Latvia and Estonia share a long common history: historical Livonia, times of German (Teutonic Order), Polish-Lithuanian, Swedish, Russian, Nazi German and Soviet rule, 13th century Christianization and 16th century Protestant Reformation. Both countries are home to a large number of ethnic Russians (26.9% in Latvia and 25.5% in Estonia) of whom some are non-citizens. Latvia is historically predominantly Protestant, except for the region of Latgalia in the southeast which is historically predominantly Roman Catholic.

Roger Helmer (born 25 January 1944 in London) is a British business executive and politician and a United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) Member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands region. He was elected to the European Parliament in 1999 as a Conservative Party MEP, and re-elected in 2004 and 2009. In March 2012 he defected from the Conservatives to UKIP.

On 12 October 2011 Helmer announced that he would resign from the European Parliament at the end of the year, citing "increasing disillusion with the attitudes of the Conservative Party" as the main reason, although admitting that his "twelve-and-a-half years banging my head against the same brick wall in Brussels is perhaps long enough". Helmer expected to be replaced by Rupert Matthews who was next on the Conservative party list in the European Parliament election, 2009. However the Tory party was reported to be looking into golliwog dolls featuring on the front cover of a book published by a company of which Matthews is director and shareholder and would not confirm that Matthews would succeed him. Helmer delayed standing down before deciding to defect to UKIP with the intention to fulfil his term until 2014.

John Stuart Agnew (born 30 August 1949 in Norwich) is a Member of the European Parliament for the East of England region for the United Kingdom Independence Party. He was elected in 2009.

He is a Norfolk farmer who formerly represented Norfolk on the NFU Council. He is a long term UKIP member. In the European Parliament he sits on the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.

He ran for UKIP in the 2001 General Election in Mid Norfolk and in the 2005 General Election in Norfolk North, and stood in Broadland in the 2010 UK general election

Godfrey Bloom (born 22 November 1949 in London) is a Member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire and the Humber for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). He was first elected in 2004, and re-elected in 2009.

Before becoming an MEP, Bloom worked as a financial economist.

Godfrey Bloom is the president of the European Alliance for Freedom, a eurosceptic pan-European political party.

In 2004, Bloom's election to the Yorkshire and the Humber seat was the UKIP's first seat in the region in the European elections.

A few weeks after his appointment to the European Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality on 20 July 2004, Bloom told an interview in Strasbourg that, "No self-respecting small businessman with a brain in the right place would ever employ a lady of child-bearing age. That isn't politically correct, is it, but it's a fact of life. The more women's rights you have, it's actually a bar to their employment." Around the same time, he was reported^{[by whom?]} as commenting, "I just don't think [women] clean behind the fridge enough" and that "I am here to represent Yorkshire women who always have dinner on the table when you get home."