Kaliningrad (Russian: Калининград, IPA: [kəlʲɪnʲɪnˈɡrat], German: Königsberg, Polish: Królewiec, Lithuanian: Karaliaučius) is a city in the administrative centre of Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea.

In the Middle Ages it was the site of the Old Prussian settlement Twangste. In 1255, during the Northern Crusades, a new fortress named Königsberg was built by the Teutonic Knights, a German Catholic religious order of crusaders. Königsberg became the capital of the Duchy of Prussia, a fiefdom of Poland from 1525 to 1657, and later of East Prussia in the German Empire. It was heavily damaged during World War II, and its population had to flee or were removed by force. Königsberg became a Russian city, was repopulated with ethnic Russians and renamed "Kaliningrad" in 1946