's Landsat satellite image of Curonian Lagoon In the
13th century, the area around the lagoon was part of the ancestral lands of the
Baltic Curonians and
Old Prussians. Later, it bordered the historical region of
Lithuania Minor. At the northern end of the Spit, the
Klaipėda Strait connects the lagoon to the
Baltic Sea, and the place was chosen by the
Teutonic Knights in 1252 to found
Memelburg Castle and the city of
Klaipėda. In 1454, King and Grand Duke
Casimir IV Jagiellon incorporated the region to the
Kingdom of Poland upon the request of the anti-Teutonic
Prussian Confederation. Following the
peace treaty of 1466, the lagoon became a part of Poland as a
fief held by the Teutonic Knights, and thus located within the
Polish–Lithuanian union, later elevated to the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. From the 18th century, it formed part of the
Kingdom of Prussia, and from 1871 also
Germany. After 1923, the
Klaipėda Region in the north passed to Lithuania (occupied by Germany in 1939–45), whereas the remainder fell to the
Soviet Union following
World War II. As the new
interwar border, the river that flows into the Curonian Lagoon near
Rusnė was chosen. The river's lower 120 km in Germany were called
die Memel by Germans, while the upper part located in Lithuania was known as
Nemunas River. The border also separated the peninsula near the small holiday resort of
Nida, Lithuania. From 1939 to 1945, the Lithuanian part was occupied by Germany, and the southern part of the Spit and the Lagoon remained in Germany until 1945. This border is now the border between Lithuania and Russia, as after World War II, the southern end of the Spit and the German area south of the river became part of an
exclave of Russia called
Kaliningrad Oblast. The nearly extinct ethnic group, the
Kursenieki, lived in the surrounding area. ==Natural history and ecology==