Sambia (Russian: Земландский полуостров, Zemlandsky poluostrov, literally the Zemlandsky Peninsula) or Samland[1] () is a peninsula in the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia, on the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea. The Curonian Lagoon (to the north-east) and the Vistula Lagoon (on the southwest) demarcate the peninsula. Prior to 1945 it formed an important part of East Prussia.
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Sambia is named after the Sambians, an extinct tribe of Old Prussians. Samland is the name for peninsula in the Germanic languages. Polish and Latin speakers call the area Sambia, while the Lithuanian name is Semba.
Sambia was originally sparsely populated by the Sambians. The German Teutonic Knights conquered the region during the 13th century and the Bishopric of Samland became, along with Bishopric of Pomesania, Bishopric of Ermland, and Bishopric of Culm, one of the four dioceses of Prussia in 1243. Settlers from the Holy Roman Empire began colonizing the region, and the Sambian Prussians gradually became assimilated. The peninsula was the last area in which the Old Prussian language was spoken before becoming extinct at the beginning of the 18th century.
The peninsula became part of the Duchy of Prussia when Albert of Brandenburg-Ansbach, the 37th Grand Master, secularized the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights in 1525. The Margraviate of Brandenburg inherited the duchy in 1618, and its Hohenzollern ruler proclaimed the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701. Sambia became part of the Province of East Prussia in 1773. (The Kingdom of Prussia completed the unification of Germany by setting up the German Empire in 1871.)
After World War I Sambia formed part of the East Prussian exclave of Weimar Germany. In 1945 after World War II, Poland and the Soviet Union partitioned East Prussia between themselves. Sambia became part of the Soviet Kaliningrad Oblast, named after the nearby city of Kaliningrad (historically German: Königsberg or Polish: Królewiec), and the new authorities expelled its German inhabitants.
The Soviet Union subsequently repopulated Sambia with Russians and Belarusians.
Baedeker[2] describes Samland as "a fertile and partly-wooded district, with several lakes, lying to the north of Königsberg" (since 1945 Kaliningrad). The highest point, 360 feet, is found twelve miles north of Pereslavskoe (Drugehnen) at the ski resort then called the Galtgarben.[3] There also used to be a Samland railway station. As of 2010[update] the Pereslavskoe railway station serves the "Blue Arrow" railway line from Kaliningrad to Svetlogorsk.
Sambia includes two famous seaside resorts, Zelenogradsk (Cranz) and Svetlogorsk (Rauschen).
Amber has been found in the area for over two thousand years, especially on the coast near Kaliningrad. In 1900, amber was chiefly exported to the East for crafting into pipe mouthpieces and ornaments. Until 1918, the right to collect amber was restricted to the Hohenzollern dynasty of Prussia; visitors to Samland's beaches were forbidden to pick up any fragments they found. History and legend tell of the ancient trade routes known as the Amber Road leading from the Old Prussian settlements of Kaup (in Sambia) and Truso (near Elbląg - German: Elbing, near the mouth of the Vistula) southwards to the Black and Adriatic seas.