Old photos · Latvia
Old photos of Riga
From the city gates coming down in the 1850s to the Soviet Riga of the 1970s and 1980s, the archive's two busiest Riga decades.
Time Portal's archive holds about 7,100 photographs of Riga, taken between 1856 and 2000, each pinned to the spot where the photographer stood. 65% of them date from 1955 or later and are free to browse at map.timeportal.app with no account; the older ones open with Pro. The oldest, dated 1856 in the archive, shows Carl's Gate, photographed — the archive notes — while the city's ramparts were being pulled down.
- Photographs
- 7,100
- Oldest
- 1856
- Busiest decade
- 1970s
- Free, 1955 on
- 65%
How many photographs, decade by decade
The busiest decades for Riga are the 1970s and the 1980s — 1,521 and 1,400 photographs. 132 were taken before 1900. Everything from 1955 onward is free to open on the map; the older photographs are part of Pro.
| Decade | Relative size | Photographs |
|---|---|---|
| before 1860 | 1 | |
| 1860s | 15 | |
| 1870s | 9 | |
| 1880s | 27 | |
| 1890s | 80 | |
| 1900s | 263 | |
| 1910s | 334 | |
| 1920s | 273 | |
| 1930s | 675 | |
| 1940s | 594 | |
| 1950s | 525 | |
| 1960s | 998 | |
| 1970s | 1,521 | |
| 1980s | 1,400 | |
| 1990s | 357 |
Where the photographs were taken
Counted in a small square around each place — about 200 metres each way — so a number is every photograph taken there, of the place itself or of the street beside it. Each place opens the map on that spot.
| Place | Photos | Oldest |
|---|---|---|
| Riga Cathedral and Dome Square | 729 | 1862–1863 |
| The Freedom Monument | 726 | 1922 |
| Town Hall Square and the House of the Blackheads | 610 | 1897 |
| St Peter's Church | 553 | 1898–1900 |
| Riga Central Market | 98 | 1925–1929 |
| Riga Central Station | 288 | 1880–1884 |
What changed
The archive's Riga begins as its fortifications came down: from 1857 the ramparts were levelled and replaced by a ring of boulevards and parks along the city canal. The Freedom Monument went up on the edge of that ring in 1935.
The old town lost its grandest building in the war. The House of the Blackheads on Town Hall Square burned in June 1941, its ruins were cleared in 1948, and it was rebuilt in the 1990s, finished in 1999.
Questions about old photos of Riga
Where can I see old photos of Riga on a map?
On Time Portal: about 7,100 photographs of Riga, each pinned where it was taken, most with the direction the camera faced. The map is free in any browser at map.timeportal.app — photographs from 1955 on need no account — and there is an app for iPhone and iPad.
What is the oldest photograph of Riga in the archive?
The oldest precisely dated photograph, from 1856, shows Carl's Gate, photographed — the archive notes — while the city's ramparts were being pulled down. 132 of the Riga photographs were taken before 1900.
Which years of Riga are best covered?
The 1970s, with 1,521 photographs, and the 1980s, with 1,400. 65% of the Riga photographs date from 1955 or later.
Open Riga on the map
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The counts on this page are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 — credit Time Portal and link here. The photographs are not ours to license: they belong to their photographers and the archives that keep them.