J?rmala is a city in Latvia, about 25 kilometers west of Riga. J?rmala is a resort town stretching 32 kilometres (20 mi) and sandwiched between the Gulf of Riga and the Lielupe River. It has a 33 km stretch of white-sand beach, and a population of 55,580, making it the fifth largest city in Latvia.
While Latvia was a part of the Soviet Union, J?rmala was a favorite holiday-resort and tourist destination for high-level Communist Party officials, particularly Leonid Brezhnev and Nikita Khrushchev. Although many amenities such as beach-houses and concrete hotels remain, some have fallen into disrepair. J?rmala remains a tourist attraction with long beaches facing the Gulf of Riga and romantic wooden houses in the Art Nouveau style.
Imants Ziedonis, one of Latvia's most important poets and folklorists of the Soviet and post-Soviet eras, was born in the J?rmala district.
Visitors can access J?rmala from Riga by suburban rail (30 min) or along the highway by car (20 min). Since 2008 J?rmala and Riga airport are connected with a bus service. Visitors with private vehicles must pay 1 LVL for each day spent in J?rmala.
In publications dating from the Soviet period, the city name was occasionally spelled in English as Yurmala, a back-transliteration from Russian
