Veliuona is a small town on the Nemunas River

Neman River

Neman or Niemen or Nemunas, is a major Eastern European river rising in Belarus and flowing through Lithuania before draining into the Curonian Lagoon and then into the Baltic Sea at Klaipėda. It is the northern border between Lithuania and Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast in its lower reaches...

 in the Jurbarkas district municipality

Jurbarkas district municipality

Jurbarkas district municipality is one of 60 municipalities in Lithuania....

 in Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

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Veliuona (also known as Junigeda) was first mentioned in 1291 in the chronicle of Peter of Duisburg

Chronicon terrae Prussiae

Chronicon terrae Prussiae is a chronicle of the Teutonic Knights, by Peter of Dusburg, finished in 1326. The manuscript is the first major chronicle of the Teutonic Order in Prussia and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, completed some 100 years after the conquest of the crusaders into the Baltic region...

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The town is primarily known as the burial place of Gediminas.
An old church, founded by Vytautas the Great

Vytautas the Great

Vytautas ; styled "the Great" from the 15th century onwards; c. 1350 October 27, 1430) was one of the most famous rulers of medieval Lithuania. Vytautas was the ruler of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania which chiefly encompassed the Lithuanians and Ruthenians...

 in 1421, was rebuilt and enlarged in 1636.
In 1501–1506 m. Veliuona was granted Magdeburg rights

Magdeburg rights

Magdeburg Rights or Magdeburg Law were a set of German town laws regulating the degree of internal autonomy within cities and villages granted by a local ruler. Modelled and named after the laws of the German city of Magdeburg and developed during many centuries of the Holy Roman Empire, it was...

 by the Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland Alexander Jagiellon

Alexander Jagiellon

Alexander of the House of Jagiellon was the Grand Duke of Lithuania and later also King of Poland. He was the fourth son of Casimir IV Jagiellon...

. In the 18th century Veliuona belonged to prince Józef Poniatowski, in the 19th century to the Zalewski family.