Neringa was founded in the year 1961 as the result of amalgamation of four settlements of the Curonian Spit, i.e. Nida, Preila, Pervalka and Juodkrantė. The length of the Spit is approximately 50 kilometers; about 3 thousands of inhabitants live here constantly. The Curonian Spit is a narrow peninsula, stretching for 98 kilometers; it separates the Curonian Gulf and the Baltic Sea. It is a unique sandy belt, which jutted out of the Litorina Sea 7 thousand years ago. For the first time the Curonian spit was mentioned in the literary sources in the year 1322. The first inhabitants could settle down on the Curonian Spit during the Stone Age, when forests covered the sandstone. The origin of the name “Spit” is related with Curonians, i.e. the tribe of the Balts, who resided in the west; that tribe had been living at the seaside, which serves as a part of the present-day Latvia and Northern Lithuania, which in the south reaches the environs of Klaipėda. In the XV century the Curonian Spit was covered with forests. The ancient inhabitants of the Spit and the newcomers, who had been living within a long period of time in the area, surrounded by the forests, did not evaluate the danger, caused by the sea-wind. Some of them had been breeding domestic animals, which used to trample and to destroy the sensitive forest layer; the others had been logging the forest for construction of castles and ships. Particularly the forests suffered during the Seven-year War, which had been continuing since the year 1756 till the year 1763. Within 80 years the sandstorms buried 14 villages underneath. The inhabitants of the Spit had been wandering from one place to another, but the quicksand of the dunes used to catch up with the fugitives. Feeling the death, the people started to correct their mistake. Thus, the ridges of the dunes, formed artificially by people, appeared. It became evident later on that the roots of the pines, growing on the hills, hold the quicksand.

The present-day Neringa is one of the most beautiful resorts in the region of the Baltic Sea. The sandy dunes with their rarely met vegetation, the seaside forest with its ancient trees and pines, planted by people, the beaches with their white quartz sand, the attractive and well-kept infrastructure, the smell of the smoked fish, abundance of cultural and sport events – these are the accents, which reflect uniqueness of this land; due to them Neringa remains attractive for the Lithuanian and foreign tourists.

In the year 1991 the National park was founded on the Curonian Spit. In the year 2000 the Curonian Spit, as a cultural landscape object, was included into the list of the world’s heritage under the aegis of UNESCO. According to the decision of the European Council of the Blue Flag, the beach of Nida was presented with the Blue flag in the year 2001. The Blue flag – is an international symbol of quality, conferred on the beach. In the year 2010 one of the most popular editions in the world, assigned for tourists, under the title “Lonely Planet” announced a dozen of the best beaches of the world, where You can blissfully “swing in the hammock”. The Curonian Spit holds the second place in the list. Only the Dakhab seaside in Egypt surpassed the Lithuanian seaside with its white quartz sand and strong-smelling pine-forest.

You will find more detailed information about Neringa on the web-site, containing the information about tourism: www.visitneringa.com/lt