Ogre Municipality
Railway health resort (1862), Ķegums Dam (1939, third-largest in Baltic), birthplace of Latvian legend Lāčplēsis. Largest municipality by population.
Ogre exists because of a railway and survived because of a dam. In 1861, the Riga-Daugavpils line created a stop here, 36 km from the capital. Within a year, Riga residents were building summer cottages. The town on the Ogre River (named for eels, in some etymologies) became a health resort.
The Ķegums Hydroelectric Power Plant (1936-1939) secured Ogre's industrial importance. The first unit started on October 15, 1939—ironically, just weeks after WWII began in Poland. The plant still operates: third-largest in the Baltic, producing 457 GWh in 2018. It was independent Latvia's greatest infrastructure achievement before Soviet occupation.
The municipality holds cultural weight beyond hydropower. Lielvārde is the birthplace of Lāčplēsis, the legendary bear-slayer who embodies Latvian national identity. Ikšķile is where the first Catholic missionaries settled and built Latvia's first stone church. The municipality is now Latvia's largest by population—a bedroom community for Riga that contains the nation's mythological origins.
By 2026, Ogre's trajectory follows Riga's: if the capital grows, Ogre grows with it. If Riga stagnates, so does its first suburb.