Bird's-eye view of the beach on the Efa Spit, Curonian Spit, Zelenogradsk. Kaliningrad region.

Bird's-eye view of the beach on the Efa Spit, Curonian Spit, Zelenogradsk. Kaliningrad region. Zelenogradsk (until 1946-Kranz, German. Cranz, Poland. Koronowo or Kranc, lit. Krantas is a resort town in the Kaliningrad Region of the Russian Federation, the administrative center of the Zelenogradsky (district) urban district. On March 29, 1999, Zelenogradsk was recognized as a federal resort specializing in balneotherapy. The city is located on the Baltic Sea coast, on the Kaliningrad Peninsula (until 1946 — the Zemlandsky or Sambiysky Peninsula), twenty-four kilometers north of Kaliningrad. The Curonian Spit (lit. Kuršiū nerija, German. Kurische Nehrung — a narrow and long sandy strip of land (spit) saber-shaped, separating the Curonian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea. It extends from the city of Zelenogradsk in the Kaliningrad Region to the city of Klaipeda (Smiltine, Lithuania). In 2000, it was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The length of the spit is 98 kilometers, the width ranges from 400 meters (near the village of Lesnoy) to 3.8 kilometers (near Cape Bulvike, just north of Nida). The name comes from the Curonian tribes who lived here before the German colonization of Prussia.