Prussian Lithuanians

The Prussian Lithuanians, or Lietuvininkai (singular: Lietuvininkas, plural: Lietuvininkai), are Lithuanians, originally Lithuanian language speakers, who formerly inhabited a territory in northeastern East Prussia called Prussian Lithuania, or Lithuania Minor (Lithuanian: Prūsų Lietuva, Mažoji Lietuva, German: Preußisch-Litauen, Kleinlitauen), instead of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and, later, the Republic of Lithuania (Lithuania Major, or Lithuania proper). Prussian Lithuanians contributed greatly to the development of written Lithuanian, which for a long time was considerably more widespread and in more literary use in Lithuania Minor than in Lithuania proper.

Unlike most Lithuanians, who remained Roman Catholic after the Protestant Reformation, most Lietuvininkai became Lutheran-Protestants (Evangelical-Lutheran).

There were 121,345 speakers of Lithuanian in the Prussian census of 1890. Almost all Prussian Lithuanians were murdered or expelled after World War II, when East Prussia was divided between Poland and the Soviet Union. The northern part became the Kaliningrad Oblast, while the southern part was attached to Poland. Only the small Klaipėda Region (German: Memelland) was attached to Lithuania.