Estonia's largest island — the medieval Kuressaare castle, juniper meadows older than any forest, a meteorite crater lake, Viking heritage older than most European kingdoms, and the most distinct regional identity in the Baltic states
Saaremaa (the 'island land' in Estonian) is the largest island in Estonia (2,673 sq km), in the eastern Baltic Sea, connected to the mainland via the Muhu causeway and the Muhu island ferry connection. The island has the most distinct regional identity of any Estonian territory — the Saarlased (Saaremaa people) are considered by mainland Estonians to be slower, more stubborn, and more committed to traditional ways than the mainland, a reputation that corresponds to a genuine historical separateness: Saaremaa was the last territory in the eastern Baltic to be conquered by the Teutonic Knights…
Saaremaa's pre-Christian history (before the Teutonic conquest of 1227) was characterised by the island's role as a naval raiding power in the Baltic: the Old Chronicle of Livonia and the Heimskringla sagas record repeated Saaremaa raids on Scandinavian and Danish coastlines from the 10th-12th centuries (the Saaremaa people were called Osilians by the Livonian German chronicles, a term derived from the Estonian Oesel). The 2008-2012 Salme ship burial excavation (the discovery of two 8th-century ships buried in shallow marine sediment at Salme village, each packed with the bodies of high-statu…