Kuldiga Municipality
UNESCO World Heritage (2023): best-preserved Duchy of Courland town. Duke Jacob was born here (1610). Europe's widest waterfall (240m) once caught salmon mid-air.
Kuldīga became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in September 2023—recognition that this is the best-preserved urban environment from the Duchy of Courland era. The town exists because the Ventas Rumba waterfall (Europe's widest at 240m) blocked medieval shipping, forcing traders to stop and portage.
The Cours built a fortification here in the 9th century. The Livonian Order arrived in 1242, built a castle, and the town joined the Hanseatic League in 1368. When the Order collapsed, Duke Gotthard Kettler made Kuldīga (then Goldingen) his main residence from 1561. His grandson Duke Jacob was born here in 1610—the ruler who would send Courland's ships to colonize Trinidad and Gambia.
Duke Jacob devised an ingenious fishing method around 1640: wicker baskets hung below the falls to catch salmon and sturgeon that failed to jump the 2-meter drop. Kuldīga was called "the town where one can catch salmon in the air." The last sturgeon was caught in 1892. The salmon are gone too.
Today the old town survives essentially intact—wooden architecture, cobblestone streets, the brick bridge (1874) that is Latvia's longest. By 2026, UNESCO status will test whether heritage tourism can sustain a town of 13,500 or merely preserve it as a museum.