A significant hub of Lithuanian intellectual, cultural, and commercial life, Kaunas is the second biggest city in the country after Vilnius, the fourth largest city in the Baltic States.
The interwar architecture found in Kaunas has been designated a European Heritage Site and is recognised as one of the best examples of European Art Deco. It helped Kaunas become the first city in Central and Eastern Europe to be named a UNESCO City of Design. It also helped Kaunas become the only city in Europe to embody large-scale urbanisation during the interwar period and flexible modernist architecture when it was inducted as a World Heritage Site in 2023.
Kaunas was chosen to serve as the 2022 European Capital of Culture.
