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The Baltic Germans (German: Deutsch-Balten, or Baltendeutsche) were mostly ethnically German...

The Baltic Germans (German: Deutsch-Balten, or Baltendeutsche) were mostly ethnically German inhabitants of the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, which today form the countries of Estonia and Latvia. The Baltic German population had never made up more than 10% of the total. They formed the social, commercial, political and cultural elite in that region for several centuries. Some of them also took high positions in the military and civilian life of the Russian Empire, particularly in Saint Petersburg. In 1881, there were approximately 46,700 Germans in Estonia (5.3% of the population). According to the Russian Empire Census of 1897, there were 120,191 Germans in Latvia, or 6.2% of the population. The largest concentration of Germans lived in the Klaipėda Region, where in the 1925 census over 41% of the population identified themselves as German. Danes began arriving in the Baltic territories just prior to the Northern Crusades in the 12th and 13th centuries, followed almost universally by Germans, both colonists (see Ostsiedlung) and crusaders. After the Livonian Crusades they quickly came to control all the administrations of government, politics, economics, education and culture