COURLAND or KURZEME, a coastal district of the re public of Latvia, lying between 56° and 45' N. and 21 ° and 23° E. It is bounded on the east by the district of Zemgale, north by the Gulf of Riga, west by the Baltic and south by the republic of Lithuania. The surface is part of the northern Baltic lowland, with boulder clay soil, low and undulating, and coast lands flat and marshy. The interior is characterized by wooded dunes, covered with pine, fir, birch and oak, with swamps and lakes, and fertile patches between. The surface nowhere rises more than 70o ft. above sea-level.
The Windau river flows diagonally across the district north westwards and is navigable in parts. The chief towns are Vent spils (Windau), Kuldiga (Goldingen), Talsi (Talsen) and Aizpute (Hazenpot). The climate is damp and often foggy, and the winter severe. Agriculture is the chief occupation, the principal crops being rye, barley, oats, wheat, flax and potatoes. Courland before 1917 was one of the Baltic provinces of Russia with an area of 10,435 square miles.
Anciently Courland was inhabited by the Cours or Kurs, a Lettish tribe, who were subdued and converted to Christianity by the Brethren of the Sword, a German military order, in the first quarter of the i3th century. In 1237 it passed under the rule of the Teutonic Knights owing to the amalgamation of this order with that of the Brethren of the Sword. Under the increasing pres sure of Russia (Muscovy) the Teutonic Knights in 1561 found it expedient to put themselves under the suzerainty of Poland, the grandmaster Gotthard Kettler (d. 1587) becoming the first duke of Courland. But by the marriage in 1710 of Kettler's descendant, Duke Frederick William (d. 1711), to the princess Anne, niece of Peter the Great and afterwards empress of Russia, Courland came into close relation with the latter state. The celebrated Marshal Saxe was elected duke in 1726, but only man aged to maintain himself by force of arms till the next year. The last Kettler, William, titular duke of Courland, died in 1737, and the empress Anne bestowed the dignity on her favourite Biren, who held it from 1737 to 1 740 and again from 1763 till his death in 1772. Eventually in 1795 the assembly of the nobles placed it under the Russian sceptre. In Nov. 1918 Courland was incorporated in the new Latvian Republic. (See LATVIA.) See H. Hollmann, Kurlands Agrarverhaltnisse (Riga, 1893) , and E. Seraphim, Geschichte Liv-, Esth-, and Kurlands (Reval, 1895-96).