Description
In the Middle Ages it was the site of the Old Prussian settlement Twangste. In 1255, during the Northern Crusades, a new fortress named Königsberg was built by the Teutonic Knights, a German Catholic religious order of crusaders. Königsberg became the capital of the Duchy of Prussia and later of East Prussia in the German Empire. It was heavily damaged during World War II, and its population fled or were removed by force. Königsberg became a Russian city, was repopulated with ethnic Russians and renamed Kaliningrad in 1946. At the 2010 Census, Kaliningrad’s population was 431,902
