"Sankt-Peterburg - ..." a Gorod Sankt-Peterburg Travel Page by eksvist

Saint-Petersburg is a city of Russia located on the Neva River at the east end of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea.

St. Petersburg's informal name is Piter. The city's other names were Sankt-Piter-Burh (1703), Petrograd (1914–1924) and Leningrad (1924–1991)

Founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 27, 1703, it was the capital of the Russian Empire for more than two hundred years (1713-1728, 1732-1918).
It is Russia's second largest and Europe's fourth largest city after Moscow, London and Paris.
4.6 million people live in the city, and over 6 million people live in the city's vicinity

Saint Petersburg is built on what originally were more than 100 islands created by a maze of rivers, creeks, canals, gulfs, lakes and ponds and other bodies of water that flow into the Baltic Sea at the mouth of the Neva river.
Peter the Great was designing the city as another Amsterdam and Venice, with canals instead of streets and citizens skillful in sailing. Initially, there were only about ten bridges constructed in the city, mainly across ditches and minor creeks.