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Estonia: Address and Telephone Directories

Telephone and address directories are used by genealogists and historians to identify people and businesses from a particular place and era. This guide lists uncataloged directories from Estonia in the Library of Congress collection.

Introduction

Montage of Estonian telephone books in the European Reading Room
Estonian telephone books. Library of Congress General Collections.

The Library of Congress maintains a large collection of foreign and domestic directories. Most of the foreign telephone directories held by the Library of Congress are uncataloged, we have therefore compiled this list of Estonian directories as a finding aid for our staff and researchers. These directories cover Estonia between the years 1937-1997. In addition to the uncataloged directories listed below, the Library also holds a handful that are cataloged and may be requested using the Library of Congress Online Catalog. To locate these directories, search the online catalog using subject keywords such as "Estonia" and "directories," or the name of a city plus "directories." In addition to telephone directories, this kind of search also yields business/address directories from Estonia.

This compilation of mostly uncataloged directories reflects the Library of Congress telephone directory holdings from Estonia as of 2021. The index is arranged by area of coverage, such as all of Estonia, or a region or city, and following that they are arranged chronologically.

Estonian telecommunications and internet services are well developed, with Estonians contributing significantly, e.g., to the development of Skype. The U.S. Department of State notes that the Estonian economy "benefits from strong electronics and telecommunications sectors; the country is so wired that it is nicknamed E-stonia." According to Estonian Post Ltd External, there were three independent national telephone switchboards on the territory of the Republic of Estonia before 1917. In 1936, telephone services were available at 1,841 locations. The CIA World Factbook External showed 492,800 main lines and 2.72 million cell phones in use in 2009.