Ecotourism
Estonia

As a part of the East-European Plain, Estonia is characterised by a flat surface topography: over 60 per cent of the country�s territory lies at an absolute height of 0 to 50 metres and only one tenth has an elevation over 100 metres above sea level. Thus, the local scenery is rather poor in vertical majesty � as a rule, no topographic feature rises above its immediate vicinity by more than 20 metres and only seldom by more than 50 metres.

During the late glacial and post-glacial period, i.e. approximately 12 000�9 000 years ago, a considerable part of Estonia was flooded by the waters of the large ice-dammed lakes and the Baltic Sea. Much of the Western Estonian mainland and islands have emerged as a result of the gradual uplift of the earth�s crust. The process is still in progress: the northwestern part of Estonia is rising at an annual rate of 2.5 millimetres. Most of the land �won� thus far, forms the so-called Lower Estonia which includes flat accumulative and marine plains, with occasional ridges of coastal dunes.

The central part of North Estonia is dominated by the creviced heights of the Pandivere Upland (highest point at 166 metres above sea level); the rest being taken up by a flat limestone plateau which is characterised by extensive alvars � dry areas with very thin or virtually absent soil cover over bedrock.

The northern edge of the plateau falls abruptly to the sea, forming a coastal cliff which stretches for kilometres along the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland. The highest point of the Baltic Clint is at Ontika in the northeast where the 56 metre high escarpment offers beautiful views of the sea.

The numerous bedrock scarps in the western part of the mainland and on the islands of Saaremaa and Muhu represent another limestone escarpment, the West-Estonian Clint.

While the most remarkable features of the country�s topography � the uplands, ancient valleys, depressions, and the Clint � were already formed before the advance of the glaciers, Estonia acquired the majority of its landforms through the movement of continental ice.

However, it is the Southeast which is both the highest and topographically most variegated region in Estonia. The undulating till plains of the Sakala Upland, the wooded moraine hills of the Otepää (217 m), Karula (137 m) and Haanja Heights with numerous lakes and rivers lend the scene picturesque mildness.

Surprising as it may sound, the 318 metres high Suur Munamägi (�Great Egg Hill�) in the Haanja Upland, being the highest point of Estonia, is the highest point in all the Baltic countries as well.