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Laponia (Swedish : Lappland) was a historical Swedish province, or landscape, in the north of Sweden. It evolved from Lappmarken. In 1809, Sweden ceded the eastern part, along with Finland, to the Russian Empire, which in effect created a Swedish Lapland and Finnish Lapland.
Today, the Swedish part is no longer an administrative subdivision in Sweden (rather, it is part of Västerbotten and Norrbotten counties). On the Finnish side, there was a Province of Lapland (much larger to the south, especially by population, and where there were no Sami for many centuries) from 1938 until 2010, when Finnish provinces were discontinued, and the province was replaced by the Region of Lapland.
Lapland is considered in some nations — notably Croatia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Serbia, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Romania and France — to be the home of Father Christmas (more widely known as Santa Claus).
The current population of Swedish Lapland plus the municipalities Enontekiö (Eanodat), Inari (Ánar), Utsjoki (Ohcejohka), Muonio (Muoná), Kittilä (Gihttel) and Sodankylä (Soad'egilli) in Finnish Lapland constitutes 125,151 individuals. The largest city is Kiruna (Giron) with 18,154 inhabitants. [1]
Before being split, Laponia was divided into juridical districts which were:
Sápmi is the cultural region traditionally inhabited by the Sámi people. Sápmi includes the northern parts of Fennoscandia, also known as the "Cap of the North".
Norrbotten County is the northernmost county or län of Sweden. It is also the largest county by land area, almost a quarter of Sweden's total area. It shares borders with Västerbotten County to the southwest, the Gulf of Bothnia to the southeast, the counties of Nordland and Troms in Norway to the northwest, and Lapland Province in Finland to the northeast.
The 25 provinces of Sweden are historical, geographical and cultural regions. They have no administrative function, but retain their own cultural identities, dialects and folklore.
Norrland is the northernmost, largest and least populated of the three traditional lands of Sweden, consisting of nine provinces. Although Norrland does not serve any administrative purposes, it continues to exist as a historical, cultural, and geographic region; it is often referred to in everyday language, e.g., in weather forecasts. Several related Norrland dialects form a distinct subset of dialects of the Swedish language separate from those to its south.
The historical provinces are former administrative or cultural areas of Finland, with origins from the slottslän of the Middle Ages. The historical provinces ceased to be administrative entities in 1634 when they were superseded by the counties, a reform which remained in force in Finland until 1997. The historical provinces remain as a tradition, but have no administrative function today.
The 21 municipalities of the Lapland Region in Finland are divided on six sub-regions:
Lapland is the largest and northernmost region of Finland. The 21 municipalities in the region cooperate in a Regional Council. Lapland borders the Finnish region of North Ostrobothnia in the south. It also borders the Gulf of Bothnia, Norrbotten County in Sweden, Finnmark County and Troms County in Norway, and Murmansk Oblast and the Republic of Karelia in Russia. The topography of Lapland varies from vast mires and forests in the south to fells in the north. The Arctic Circle crosses Lapland, so polar phenomena such as the midnight sun and polar night can be viewed in this region.
Lappland can refer to:
Norrbotten, known in English as North Bothnia, is a Swedish province (landskap) in northernmost Sweden. It borders south to Västerbotten, west to Swedish Lapland, and east to Finland.
Enontekiö is a municipality in the Finnish part of Lapland with approx. 1,800 inhabitants. It is situated in the outermost northwest of the country and occupies a large and very sparsely populated area of about 8,400 square kilometres (3,200 sq mi) between the Swedish and Norwegian border. Finland's highest point, the Halti fell, with a height of 1,324 metres (4,344 ft) above the mean sea level, is situated in the north of Enontekiö. The municipality shares borders with regions of Sweden and Norway that encompass the Scandinavian Mountains. The administrative centre of Enontekiö is the village of Hetta. About one fifth of the community's population are Sami people. Enontekiö's main industries are tourism and reindeer husbandry.
The University of Lapland is a public university in Rovaniemi, Finland. It was established in 1979 and is the northernmost university in the European Union.
Lake Inari is the largest lake in Sápmi and the third-largest lake in Finland. It is located in the northern part of Lapland, north of the Arctic Circle. The lake is 117–119 metres (384–390 ft) above sea level, and is regulated at the Kaitakoski power plant in Russia. The freezing period normally extends from November to early June.
The Laponian area is a large mountainous wildlife area in the Lapland province in northern Sweden, more precisely in Gällivare Municipality, Arjeplog Municipality and Jokkmokk Municipality. The name comes from the Latin name for Lapland.
Lapland, also known by its Swedish name Lappland, is a province in northernmost Sweden. It borders the Swedish provinces of Jämtland, Ångermanland, Västerbotten, and Norrbotten, as well as Norway and Finland. Nearly a quarter of Sweden's land area is in Lappland.
Lappmarken was an earlier Swedish name for the northern part of the old Kingdom of Sweden inhabited by the Sami people. In addition to the present-day Swedish Lapland, it also covered Västerbotten, Jämtland and Härjedalen, as well as the Finnish Lapland. As a name, it is related to Finnmark, an old Norwegian name for the Sami area. "Finn" and "Lapp" are mutually exchangeable old names for the Sami people, although the latter is sometimes deemed offensive.
Laponia is a historical Finnish Province in the north of Finland. The present-day Finnish region, modern province of Lapland contains also an Ostrobothnian area called Peräpohjola outside of the historical Laponia. The historical province formed a part of a larger Swedish historical province of Laponia before Finland was ceded to Russia in September 1809.
The Province of Lapland was a province of Finland from 1938 to 2009.
Lapland may refer to:
Southern Lapland was the northernmost part of the historical province of Ostrobothnia, and has sometimes been considered a separate region, but it is now part of the Lapland region. It belonged to the province of Oulu for a long time, but from 1938 it formed the southern part of the province of Lapland, which was founded that year. Parts of the Salla-Kuusamo area, which included the easternmost part of southern Lapland, were ceded to the Soviet Union in 1940, after the end of the Winter War and again in 1944, after the end of the Continuation War.
Sampo Lappelill. En saga från Lappland. is a fairy tale by Finnish writer Zachris Topelius about an adventurous Sámi boy who defies the Mountain King creature. "Lapp" is the historical term for a Sámi person and Lapland is a historical Northern Scandinavian region, the traditional land of Sami people. Although a Finn, Topelius wrote in Swedish.