Exciting facts about Raplamaa
Milestones
The city hill of Keava is mentioned in the chronicle 100 years earlier than the city of Tallinn
A thousand years ago, the trade route from Novgorod to Persia went through the Raplamaa area. To secure the trade route, Varbola stronghold, the most powerful ancient castle in the Baltics, was built in Varbola in the 12th century.
There were many gorgeous manors and famous landlords in Raplamaa: the Uexkülls, the Fersens, the Keyserlings, the Wrangels.
The oldest works of art in Estonia, the bas-reliefs from Pompeii, are located in Vana-Vigala Manor.
Rapla Maarja-Magdaleena church (built in 1901) is the only country church with two towers in Estonia.
Raplamaa is home to the glass capital of Estonia - Järvakandi
Raplamaa in numbers
The area of Rapla county is 2765 km².
The population is 33,311 (01.01.2019), which is 12.0 inhabitants per square kilometer.
The county center Rapla is located 48 km from Tallinn.
Raplamaa shares a place in the heart of Estonia with Järva County. Neither county has any sea or external borders.
Raplamaa is, both literally and figuratively, a place of springs, where whole rivers originate, but also new thoughts and even schools of thought.
You can drive through Raplamaa in a short time along the Tallinn-Pärnu or Tallinn-Viljandi highway. However, the driver only needs to take a short detour to a side road and reach new discoveries step by step.
Our Raplamaa
The beautiful nature and relatively peaceful living environment today attracts many capital city residents, tired of the hustle and bustle of the big city, to build their homes here. The same thing happened several centuries ago, when manors were born. Manor historians appreciate the architectural uniqueness of the manors here and distinguish the golden circle of Raplamaa manors accordingly.
The areas and people here have always been a sensitive reflection of the development of Estonia, whether as a meeting place of ancient elders, the beginning of the greatest uprising of the Middle Ages or the source of the Estonian epic. In the 1950s, the largest organization of forest brothers was born here, which fought against the Soviet occupation.
Raplamaa has also played the same role in newly independent Estonia. It was here that, for example, the Kaitseliit was restored and the village movement or ecotourism, now spread across the country, began to develop.
The nature of Raplamaa is characterized by large marsh areas and dense forests. Forests cover almost half of the county, while swamps and marshy areas cover about a third.
Raplamaa is largely located on a limestone plain. In the northern and central parts, you can find fertile fields and large karst areas, but in the Vigala region, the soil is a steep loam layer, into which entire buildings once sank.
In the municipality of Märjamaa, the world’s rarest fragile alvar spruce trees grow on limestone. Kaiu and Rapla rural municipalities are home to the largest karst caves in Estonia, the Kuimetsa and Pae caves.
Near the town of Märjamaa, one of the most exciting karst phenomena can be seen. In the spring, the ground squeezes lake-fulls of water on the otherwise waterless meadows, which have come to be called “järtas”. In a year with a lot of water, the water also floods the yards and basements of nearby houses.
In the eastern part of the county grow tall coniferous forests, but in the western part of Märjamaa you can come across juniper groves characteristic of Western Estonia. However, Kehtna parish has the hilly landscape of southern Estonia, including the highest hill in western Estonia, Paluküla Hiiemägi, which is 106 m above sea level.
Seven rivers of three river basins (Keila, Pärnu and Kasari) originate from the marshes of Raplamaa. Forests and swamps provide a habitat for many animals and birds. All Estonian wild animals live here, such as wolf and lynx, bear, deer, wild boar and moose. In the marshes of Raplamaa, there are places where it is possible to observe the spring mating game of wild boar and grouse, and where black storks and golden eagles live, wary of humans.
Many ecological community and endless transition zones grow rare plants. Of the 36 orchid species found in Estonia, 25 species have been found in Raplamaa.