Old photos · Estonia
Old photos of Tallinn
More than two in three of Tallinn's photographs are from the 1960s to the 1980s — and its old town changed so little in those years that they still line up with its streets today.
Time Portal's archive holds about 5,100 photographs of Tallinn (Reval), taken between 1867 and 2000, each pinned to the spot where the photographer stood. 78% 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 1867 in the archive, shows the old town in a panorama pieced together from three prints.
- Photographs
- 5,100
- Oldest
- 1867
- Busiest decade
- 1970s
- Free, 1955 on
- 78%
How many photographs, decade by decade
The busiest decades for Tallinn are the 1970s and the 1980s — 1,364 and 1,144 photographs. 44 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 | 0 | |
| 1860s | 2 | |
| 1870s | 3 | |
| 1880s | 4 | |
| 1890s | 35 | |
| 1900s | 67 | |
| 1910s | 105 | |
| 1920s | 131 | |
| 1930s | 151 | |
| 1940s | 522 | |
| 1950s | 366 | |
| 1960s | 1,029 | |
| 1970s | 1,364 | |
| 1980s | 1,144 | |
| 1990s | 162 |
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Town Hall Square | 717 | 1902 |
| Toompea | 1,169 | 1905–1910 |
| The Viru Gate | 277 | 1888 |
| St Olaf's Church | 231 | 1902 |
| Kadriorg | 111 | 1926 |
| St Nicholas' Church and Kiek in de Kök | 542 | 1926 |
What changed
Tallinn's medieval old town — Toompea on its hill and the Lower Town below — came through the twentieth century largely intact, which is why its photographs are so easy to match. The city was Reval until 1918, when Estonia declared its independence.
The worst damage came in one night: the Soviet air raid of 9 March 1944 burned the blocks around Harju Street and gutted St Nicholas' Church, and the gap on Harju Street was never built over. The archive's busiest decades, the 1960s to the 1980s, are of Soviet Tallinn, capital of the Estonian SSR until 1991.
Questions about old photos of Tallinn
Where can I see old photos of Tallinn on a map?
On Time Portal: about 5,100 photographs of Tallinn, 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 Tallinn in the archive?
The oldest precisely dated photograph, from 1867, shows the old town in a panorama pieced together from three prints. 44 of the Tallinn photographs were taken before 1900.
Which years of Tallinn are best covered?
The 1970s, with 1,364 photographs, and the 1980s, with 1,144. 78% of the Tallinn photographs date from 1955 or later.
Open Tallinn 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.