Hiiumaa is Estonia's second-largest island and, for many, the calmest and most distinctive of them all. North of Saaremaa, it's a world apart of pine forests, lonely shores, peat bogs and quiet villages, with only about 9,500 inhabitants and a delightfully slow pace of life. Hiiumaa islanders are known for a humour all their own, wry and deadpan, and a very personal relationship with time: on Hiiumaa, nobody rushes.
Above all, the island is lighthouse country. Kõpu Lighthouse, built in the 16th century, is one of the oldest lighthouses in the world still in operation and stands on the island's highest hill; the Tahkuna and Ristna lighthouses, made of cast iron brought from France (one from Gustave Eiffel's workshop), watch over their wind-swept peninsulas. Add to that the romantic Kassari peninsula and its stony spit of Sääretirp, the Suuremõisa manor house, the surf beaches of Ristna, the lavender fields and a history that features Baltic Swedes and eccentric feudal lords.
This guide explores Hiiumaa from a practical angle: how to get there by ferry from Rohuküla, how to get around the island, what to see (the Kõpu, Tahkuna and Ristna lighthouses, Kassari, Suuremõisa, Kärdla), where to sleep and eat, and when to go. A perfect destination if you're after Baltic islands, historic lighthouses, untouched nature, silence and that slow pace so typical of Hiiumaa.
Hiiumaa (the Dagö of the Swedes and Germans) was settled permanently relatively late, and for centuries it had a sizeable community of Baltic Swedes, until most of them were deported to southern Russia on the orders of Catherine II in 1781. The island belonged to the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek, passed to Sweden in 1563 and then to the Russian Empire in the 18th century, ruled by Baltic German noble families such as the De la Gardies, the Stenbocks and the Ungern-Sternbergs. One of the latter, the eccentric Otto Reinhold Ludwig von Ungern-Sternberg, was exiled to Siberia for murder. The 16th-century Kõpu Lighthouse and Suuremõisa Manor bear witness to that past. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The western archipelago, frozen in time: the large island of Saaremaa with its crater and castle, forested Hiiumaa with its lighthouses, and little Muhu.
Read the history of The western islands →Some places make no sense on your own; with someone explaining them, they change completely. We look ours up on Civitatis: guided in Spanish and booked online with no fuss. They have 14 activities in Tallin. And there are free tours here: you book without paying and tip the guide whatever you think at the end, so trying one costs you nothing. Three are below so you get the idea: tap any of them and they all open.
They depart from Tallin, 136 km away. If you book from this link we earn a commission and you pay no more.
No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Hiiumaa — the Dagö of Swedish and German chronicles — is an island that was settled relatively late. Covered in forests and peat bogs, with poor soils and a dangerous coastline, it lacked the conditions of fertile Saaremaa and for a long time was sparsely inhabited. The first documented permanent settlements date from the Middle Ages, and the island slowly emerged from the sea through post-glacial rebound, a phenomenon that still makes its coastline grow today.
One of the most distinctive features of Hiiumaa's history is the presence, over centuries, of a sizeable community of Baltic Swedes (the rannarootslased, or coastal Swedes). These Swedish-speaking settlers made their home on the west coast and in villages such as Reigi, and kept their language, customs and seafaring culture alive for generations. Together with the communities on the mainland coast and other islands, they formed one of the most important historic Swedish communities in Estonia.
That community came to an abrupt end. In 1781, on the orders of Empress Catherine II of Russia, most of Hiiumaa's Swedes were deported to the south of the Russian Empire, in present-day Ukraine, where they founded the village of Gammalsvenskby ('the old Swedish village'). It was a traumatic episode that emptied part of the island and largely erased the Swedish imprint, although its memory lives on in place names, in some churches and in Hiiumaa's historical memory.
In the Middle Ages, after the Livonian Crusade, Hiiumaa was divided up and tied to the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek and to the Order, within the Christian world of medieval Livonia (Terra Mariana). Like the other western islands, it was a maritime frontier, with its stone churches — such as the old one at Pühalepa — and a peasant population that lived from fishing, livestock and the forest.
With the Livonian War and the collapse of the old order, the island was drawn into the orbit of the great Baltic powers. In 1563 Hiiumaa was annexed by Sweden and became part of the Swedish empire that dominated much of the eastern Baltic in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Swedish period strengthened the Lutheran church, the administration and rural life, and consolidated the island's community of coastal Swedes.
The Great Northern War (1700-1721) redrew the map once again: Sweden was defeated by Russia, and under the Treaty of Nystad (1721) Hiiumaa and all of Estonia passed to the Russian Empire. Under the tsar, real power on the island remained in the hands of the Baltic German landed nobility, who ran the large estates and controlled the lives of the Estonian peasants. Families such as the De la Gardies, the Stenbocks and the Ungern-Sternbergs succeeded one another at the head of the island's great manors, among them Suuremõisa.
Nothing defines Hiiumaa's history as much as its relationship with the sea, and in particular with the dangers of navigation. The island's west coast, with the long Kõpu peninsula reaching out into the Baltic and the treacherous Hiiu madal shoals, was for centuries one of the places sailors feared most: countless ships sailing between the Gulf of Finland and the open sea were wrecked there.
To cut down on these disasters, the Hanseatic League pushed for a lighthouse to be built on the island's highest point. Work on Kõpu Lighthouse began in 1504 and, with interruptions, was completed around 1540, creating one of the oldest navigational structures in the world still in operation. Standing on Tornimägi hill, its light — at first simply a bonfire at the top — guided ships from dozens of kilometres away. For centuries the lighthouse was privately owned, run in turn by the De la Gardie, Stenbock and Ungern-Sternberg families, who charged for its service.
This history of shipwrecks also has a dark side. Legend — and history — accuse some of the island's lords of 'wrecking': luring ships aground with misleading lights in order to plunder the wrecks. The most notorious was Otto Reinhold Ludwig von Ungern-Sternberg (1744-1811), lord of Suuremõisa, who was accused of such practices and finally exiled to Siberia in 1804 for the murder of a Swedish captain. The figure of the eccentric, sinister nobleman, somewhere between fact and myth, became etched in Hiiumaa's imagination.
With the birth of the Republic of Estonia in 1918, Hiiumaa became part of the young Estonian state. As in the rest of the country, the land reform of the 1920s broke up the great estates of the Baltic German nobility and shared the land out among the peasants, transforming the island's old social structure.
The Second World War brought Hiiumaa, like all of Estonia, a series of occupations: Soviet in 1940, German in 1941 and Soviet again in 1944. Because of its strategic position at the mouth of the Gulf of Finland, Hiiumaa — and especially the Tahkuna peninsula — was fortified with batteries and coastal defences, whose remains can be seen today at the Tahkuna Military Museum.
After the war, with Estonia absorbed into the Soviet Union, Hiiumaa became a closed military border zone. As territory on the USSR's western frontier, facing the Baltic and the West, the island was tightly controlled and heavily militarised: visiting required a special permit, and much of the coast was a restricted area. That isolation, together with the small population and the lack of industry, meant the island's nature and traditional way of life were remarkably well preserved, almost frozen in time.
When Estonia regained its independence in 1991, Hiiumaa finally opened up to the world after decades of isolation. Paradoxically, those closed years left it one of its greatest treasures: an island with untouched nature, well-preserved traditional villages and a calm way of life that it has managed to hold on to in the face of modernisation.
Today Hiiumaa lives from quiet tourism, farming, fishing, forestry and a small output of crafts and local food. With around 9,500 inhabitants, it remains one of the most sparsely populated and peaceful parts of Estonia. The island has turned its character into a brand: Hiiumaa islanders are famous throughout the country for their own dry, deadpan, tongue-in-cheek humour and for an unhurried philosophy of life that they proudly cultivate. There is even, half in jest and half in earnest, the idea of a 'Republic of Hiiumaa' with its own flag and identity.
For travellers, the island offers a different experience from urban Estonia: centuries-old lighthouses you can climb, empty coastlines, the stony spit of Sääretirp, Suuremõisa manor and its legends, lavender fields, silent forests and villages where time moves at another pace. Hiiumaa is the calmest and most authentic side of island Estonia, a place to slow down and let yourself be carried along by the stillness of the Baltic.
