Lapland (Finland)


Lapland is the largest and northernmost region of Finland. The municipalities in the region cooperate in a Regional Council. There are 21 municipalities in Lapland region. Lapland borders the region of North Ostrobothnia in the south. It also borders the Gulf of Bothnia, Norrbotten County in Sweden, Troms and Finnmark County in Norway, and Murmansk Oblast and the Republic of Karelia in Russia. Topography varies from vast mires and forests of the South to fells in the North. Arctic circle crosses Lapland so polar phenomena such as Midnight Sun and Polar night can be seen in Lapland.
Lapland's cold and wintry climate, coupled with its relative abundance of conifer trees such as pines and spruces means that it has become associated with Christmas in some countries, most notably the United Kingdom, and holidays to Lapland are common towards the end of the year. However, Lapland region has developed its infrastructure for year-round tourism and for example 2019 on snow-free period tourism increased more than during the winter season. Rovaniemi Airport is the third busiest airport in Finland. Besides tourism, other important sectors are trade, manufacturing and construction
The region was associated with Father Christmas or Saint Nicholas when first proposed by Finnish radio host Markus Rautio in 1927.

Geography

The area of the Lapland region is 100,367 km², which consists of 92,667 km² of dry land, 6,316 km² fresh water and 1,383 km² of sea water. In the south it borders the Northern Ostrobothnia region, in the west Sweden, in the north and west Norway and in the east Russia. Its borders follow three rivers: Tana, Muonio and Torne. The largest lake is Lake Inari, 1,102 km². Highest point is on Halti, which reaches 1,324 m on the Finnish side of the border.
The areas of Enontekiö and Utsjoki in northern Lapland are known as Fell-Lapland. The bulk and remaining Lapland is known as Forest-Lapland. Lake Inari, the many fens of the region and the Salla-Saariselkä mountains are all part of Forest-Lapland. Fell-Lapland lies in the fells of the Scandinavian Mountains. Where it is not made up of barren ground like blockfields but instead has a vegetation of birch forests, willow thickets or heath. Common soil types in Forest-Lapland are till and sand with conifer forests growing on top. These forests show little variation across Lapland. Compared to southern Finland forest tree species grow slower. Understory is typically made of blueberry, lichens, crowberry and ling.
The landscape of large parts of Lapland is an inselberg plain. It has been suggested the inselberg plains were formed in the Late Cretaceous or Paleogene period by pediplanation or etchplanation. Relative to southern Finland Lapland stands out for its thick till cover. The hills and mountains are typically made up of resistant rocks like granite, gneiss, quartzite and amphibolite. The ice sheet that covered Finland intermittently during the Quaternary grew out from the Scandinavian Mountains. The central parts of the Fennoscandian ice sheet had cold-based conditions during times of maximum extent. This means that in areas like north-east Sweden and northern Finland pre-existing landforms and deposits escaped glacier erosion and are particularly well preserved at present. Northwest to southeast movement of the ice has left a field of aligned drumlins in central Lapland. Ribbed moraines found in the same area reflects a later west to east change in movement of the ice. During the last deglaciation ice in Lapland retreated from the north-east, east and southeast so that the lower course of the Tornio was the last part of Finland to be deglaciated 10,100 years ago. Present-day periglacial conditions in Lapland are reflected in the existence of numerous palsas, permafrost landforms developed on peat.
The bedrock of Lapland belongs to the Karelian Domain occupying the bulk of the region, the Kola Domain in the northeast around Lake Inari and the Scandinavian Caledonides in the tip of Lapland's northwestern arm. With few exceptions rocks are of Archean and Proterozoic age. Granites, gneiss, metasediments and metavolcanics are common rocks while greenstone belts are recurring features. More rare rock associations include mafic and ultramafic layered intrusions and one of the world's oldest ophiolites. The region hosts valuable deposits of gold, chromium, iron and phosphate.

Climate

The very first snowflakes fall to the ground in late August or early September over the higher peaks. The first ground-covering snow arrives on average in October or late September. Permanent snow cover comes between mid-October and the end of November, significantly earlier than in southern Finland. The winter is long, approximately seven months. The snow cover is usually thickest in early April. Soon after that the snow cover starts to melt fast. The thickest snow cover ever was measured in Kilpisjärvi in 19 April 1997 and it was 190 cm. The annual mean temperature varies from a couple of degrees below zero in the northwest to a couple of degrees above zero in the southwest. Lapland exhibits a trend of increasing precipitation towards the south, with the dryest parts being located at the two arms.
Summer months, the average temperature is consistently over 10°C. Heat waves with daily temperatures exceeding +25 °C, occur average 5-10 days per summer in northern Finland.

History

The area of Lapland was split between two counties of the Swedish Realm from 1634 to 1809. The northern and western areas were part of Västerbotten County, while the southern areas were part of Ostrobothnia County. The northern and western areas were transferred in 1809 to Oulu County, which became Oulu Province. Under the royalist constitution of Finland during the first half of 1918, Lapland was to become a Grand Principality and part of the inheritance of the proposed king of Finland. Lapland Province was separated from Oulu Province in 1938.
During the Interim Peace and beginning of the Continuation War the government of Finland allowed the Nazi German Army to station itself in Lapland as a part of Operation Barbarossa. After Finland made a separate peace with the Soviet Union in 1944, the Soviet Union demanded that Finland expel the German army from its soil. The result was the Lapland War, during which almost the whole civilian population of Lapland was evacuated. The Germans used scorched earth tactics in Lapland, before they withdrew to Norway. Forty to forty-seven percent of the dwellings in Lapland and of railroads were destroyed, of roadways were mined, destroyed or were unusable, and 675 bridges and of telephone lines were also destroyed. Ninety percent of Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland, was burned to the ground, with only a few pre-war buildings surviving the destruction.
After the Second World War, Petsamo municipality and part of Salla municipality were ceded to the Soviet Union. The decades following the war were a period of rebuilding, industrialization and fast economic growth. Large hydroelectric plants and mines were established and cities, roads and bridges were rebuilt from the destruction of the war. In the late 20th century the economy of Lapland started to decline, mines and factories became unprofitable and the population started to decline rapidly across most of the region.
The provinces of Finland were abolished on 1 January 2010, but Lapland was reorganised as one of the new regions that replaced them.

Economy

Tourism

Population

Lapland is the home of about 3.4% of Finland's total population, and is by far the least densely populated area in the country. The biggest towns in Lapland are Rovaniemi, Tornio, and Kemi. In 2011, Lapland had a population of 183,320 of whom 177,950 spoke Finnish, 1,526 spoke Sami, 387 spoke Swedish and 3,467 spoke some other languages as their mother tongue. Of the Sami languages, Northern Sami, Inari Sami and Skolt Sami are spoken in the region.
Lapland's population has been in decline since 1990.
YearPopulation
1950169,211
1955189,176
1960208,788
1965221,162
1970197,429
1975195,131
1980196,288
1985200,571
1990201,652
1995200,579
2000189,288
2005184,935
2010183,484
2015180,858

Regional Council

The 21 municipalities of Lapland are organised into a single Region, where they cooperate in the Lapland Regional Council, Lapin liitto or Lapplands förbund.

Politics

Lapland has seven seats in the 200-seat parliament of Finland. In the 2019 Finnish parliamentary election, three seats went to Centre Party, and the Finns Party, the Left Alliance, the Social Democratic Party and the National Coalition Party got one seat each.
The votes were distributed as follows:
The northernmost municipalities of Lapland where the Sami people are the most numerous, form the Sami Domicile Area. Sami organization exists in parallel with the provincial one.

Municipalities

The region of Lapland is made up of 21 municipalities, of which four have city status.
MunicipalityPopulation
Area
Density
Sub-Region
Rovaniemi62,9638,016.847.85Rovaniemi
Tornio21,8721,348.8518.84Kemi-Tornio
Kemi21,024747.51232.23Kemi-Tornio
Sodankylä8,44212,415.480.76Northern Lapland
Keminmaa8,149647.2313.69Kemi-Tornio
Kemijärvi7,3753,930.912.29Eastern Lapland
Inari6,91117,333.540.45Northern Lapland
Kittilä6,4238,262.940.79Fell Lapland
Ylitornio4,0172,212.382.22Torne Valley
Ranua3,8953,694.801.21Rovaniemi
Kolari3,8242,617.771.51Fell Lapland
Salla3,4935,873.080.68Eastern Lapland
Pello3,4391,863.682.17Torne Valley
Posio3,2363,544.811.20Eastern Lapland
Tervola3,0631,592.042.12Kemi-Tornio
Simo3,0442,086.392.34Kemi-Tornio
Muonio2,3022,037.801.25Fell Lapland
Enontekiö1,8568,391.350.24Fell Lapland
Utsjoki1,2325,372.010.25Northern Lapland
Savukoski1,0166,495.950.17Eastern Lapland
Pelkosenniemi9541,881.570.53Eastern Lapland
Total178,530100,366.931.78

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