Tags: Ethnic Group.
Russians have been the largest ethnic minority in Latvia for the last two centuries. The number of Russians in Latvia increased significantly during the Soviet occupation of Latvia when the size of the community grew from 10.5% of the total population in 1935 (206499) to 34.0% in 1989 (905515). It started to decrease in size again after Latvia re-gained independence in 1991 falling to 26.9% (557119) in 2011. See Demographics of Latvia.