Vecpiebalga

Vecpiebalga, a modest village in Latvia's Vidzeme region, holds an outsized place in Latvian cultural history as the birthplace of the country's first novel — Mērnieku laiki (The Time of the Land Surveyors), written in 1879 by brothers Reinis and Matīss Kaudzīte during the Latvian national awakening. The village was also a significant centre of traditional Latvian textile weaving, and the ruins of Vecpiebalga Castle remain on site. It sits between two lakes in rolling upland countryside protected as a landscape reserve since 1987.

• Population596
• Nearest water from center 2.3 km1.4 mi
• Nearest mountain from center 2.0 km1.3 mi