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Saint-Petersburg, Russia (with Roads)

Saint Petersburg is a Russian city in northwestern Russia near the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea. Over five million people live in St. Petersburg as of 2015, and it is the second biggest city in Russia. It connects with the rest of the world's shipping paths through the Baltic Sea.

Saint Petersburg and its surroundings are a World Heritage Site called The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments.

Saint Petersburg was started by the Russian Tsar, Peter I as the capital of the Russian Empire in 1703, to take the place of the earlier capital, Moscow. It was the capital of Russia until 1918. Peter the Great established Saint Petersburg as a warm-weather port in order to show Russian dominance in the Baltic and to increase trading opportunities. Peter sought to modernize Russia, therefore he tried to make Saint Petersburg as different as possible from the former capital, Moscow, by modernizing the city.

Saint Petersburg has changed its name many times. During World War I, when Russia and Germany were fighting each other, Russians thought the name Sankt Peterburg sounded too German, so Tsar Nicholas II, on August 31 (August 18, Old Style), 1914 decided that the city was renamed Petrograd. At the time of the Russian revolution, the Soviet capital was moved to Moscow, still the capital of Russia now.