The city was heavily damaged by Allied bombing in 1944 and during the Battle of Königsberg in 1945 it was then captured by the Soviet Union on 9 April 1945. Königsberg was the easternmost large city in Germany until World War II. From 1454 to 1455 the city under the name of Królewiec belonged to the Kingdom of Poland, and from 1466 to 1657 it was a Polish fief. Königsberg remained the coronation city of the Prussian monarchy, though the capital was moved to Berlin in 1701. A Baltic port city, it successively became the capital of the State of the Teutonic Order, the Duchy of Prussia (1525–1701) and East Prussia. The settlement of modern-day Kaliningrad was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement Twangste by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was named Königsberg in honor of King Ottokar II of Bohemia. Kaliningrad is the second-largest city in the Northwestern Federal District, after Saint Petersburg, the third-largest city in the Baltic region, and the seventh-largest city on the Baltic Sea. Its population in 2020 was 489,359, with up to 800,000 residents in the urban agglomeration. The city is situated on the Pregolya River, at the head of the Vistula Lagoon on the Baltic Sea, and is the only ice-free port of Russia and the Baltic states on the Baltic Sea. The city sits about 412 miles, (663km) west from mainland Russia. Kyonigsberg, IPA: ), is the largest city and administrative centre of Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian semi-exclave between Lithuania and Poland. Kaliningrad ( / k ə ˈ l ɪ n ɪ n ɡ r æ d/ kə- LIN-in-grad Russian: Калининград, IPA: ), until 1946 known as Königsberg ( German pronunciation: Russian: Кёнигсберг, tr. 4 July observed on the first Saturday of July

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