Baltic States Internet Population

Internet use within the Baltic Sea States has grown significantly in the past five years. Data compiled by Internet World Stats reports Internet user growth in Russia alone at 600 percent since 2000.

That places Russia at the highest rate of adoption in the region, now with a total 22.3 million Internet users, although penetration is only at 15.5 percent of the population. New Internet users in Latvia bring that country’s online population to 810,000, or 35 percent penetration.

The lowest recent growth in the region was in Iceland, which had 34.3 percent increase in users between 2000 and 2005. Despite the recent slow adoption rate, the country’s Internet population is a healthy 76.5 percent.

The Baltic States traditionally included only Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In 1992, 11 states in the region formed The Council of the Baltic Sea States, which includes representation from both Western European and former East Bloc countries including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia, and Sweden.

Internet World Stats compiles data from a number of sources including the World Gazetteer, Nielsen//NetRatings, International Telecommunications Union, and the Computer Industry Almanac.

Internet Usage in The Baltic Sea States
Baltic Sea State	Population (2005 Est.)	Internet Users	User Growth, 2000-2005 (%)	Penetration (% Population)
Denmark	5,411,596	3,762,500	92.9	69.5
Estonia	1,344,840	670,000	82.8	49.8
Finland	5,246,920	3,286,000	70.5	62.6
Germany	82,726,188	47,127,725	96.4	57.0
Iceland	294,947	225,000	34.3	76.5
Latvia	2,306,489	810,000	440.0	35.1
Lithuania	3,430,836	968,000	330.2	28.2
Norway	4,606,363	3,140,000	42.7	68.2
Poland	38,133,691	10,600,000	278.6	27.8
Russia	144,003,901	22,300,000	619.4	15.5
Sweden	9,043,990	6,656,737	64.4	73.6
Source: Internet World Stats, 2005; Miniwatts International, Ltd., 2005.