Rovaniemi is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Lapland. It is located near the Arctic Circle in the northern interior of the country. The population of Rovaniemi is approximately 65,000, while the sub-region has a population of approximately 69,000. It is the 17th most populous municipality in Finland, and the 12th most populous urban area in the country. Rovaniemi is also the largest city in Europe by land area.
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.
Kemi is a town and municipality of Finland. It is located very near the city of Tornio and the Swedish border. The distance to Oulu is 105 kilometres (65 mi) to the south and to Rovaniemi is 117 kilometres (73 mi) to the northeast. It was founded in 1869 by a decree of the Emperor Alexander II of Russia because of its proximity to a deepwater port.
Tornio is a city and municipality in Lapland, Finland. The city forms a cross-border twin city together with Haparanda on the Swedish side. The municipality covers an area of 1,348.83 square kilometres (520.79 sq mi), of which 161.59 km2 (62.39 sq mi) is water. The population density is 17.67 inhabitants per square kilometre (45.8/sq mi), with a total population of 21,002.
Sub-regions are divisions used for statistical purposes in Finland. The country is divided into 69 sub-regions, which are formed by groups of municipalities within the 19 regions of Finland. These sub-regions represent a LAU 1 level of division used in conjunction with the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics.
Sodankylä is a municipality of Finland. It is located in the region of Lapland, and lies at the northern end of Highway 5 (E63) and along Highway 4 (E75). The Kitinen River flows near the center of Sodankylä. Its neighbouring municipalities are Inari, Kemijärvi, Kittilä, Pelkosenniemi, Rovaniemi, and Savukoski. The municipality has two official languages: Finnish and Northern Sami.
Tervola is a municipality of Finland.
The Battle of Tornio was the first major engagement between Nazi Germany and Finland in the Lapland War; although hostilities had already begun elsewhere.
The Battle of Rovaniemi was an event during the 1944 Lapland War. The actual fighting between the components of the Finnish Armoured Division and Finnish 3rd Division against the troops of the German Twentieth Mountain Army took place at the vicinity of the town of Rovaniemi. The notoriety of the encounter derives from the near-total destruction of the town.
Kemi-Tornio University of Applied Sciences (KTUAS) was a Finnish University of applied sciences located in Kemi and Tornio. It was founded in 1992 as Kemi-Tornio Polytechnic, a merger of several institutes of higher vocational education in the Kemi-Tornio region of Finland. It was merged with Rovaniemi University of Applied Sciences into Lapland University of Applied Sciences on January 1, 2014.
Kemi railway station is located in the town of Kemi in the Lapland Region of Finland. It is operated by VR. The distance to the Helsinki Central railway station, via Haapamäki and Oulu stations is 858.3 kilometres.
During World War II, the Lapland War saw fighting between Finland and Nazi Germany – effectively from September to November 1944 – in Finland's northernmost region, Lapland. Though the Finns and the Germans had been fighting together against the Soviet Union since 1941 during the Continuation War (1941–1944), peace negotiations between the Finnish government and the Allies of World War II had been conducted intermittently during 1943–1944, but no agreement had been reached. The Moscow Armistice, signed on 19 September 1944, demanded that Finland break diplomatic ties with Germany and expel or disarm any German soldiers remaining in Finland.
The Peräpohjola dialects are a group of Finnish dialects traditionally spoken in the regions of Lapland, Norrbotten and Finnmark. However, due to primarily historical, political and sociological reasons, some traditional Peräpohja dialects have been granted the status of independent Finnic languages in Sweden and Norway. These forms of speech are called Meänkieli in Sweden, while in Norway the traditional Ruija dialects were recognized as forming the Kven language, which both were isolated from the development of modern standard Finnish. However, the status of these two Finnic variants as their own languages is still sometimes disputed due to their close mutual integibility with Finnish.
The Province of Lapland was a province of Finland from 1938 to 2009.
Lapland University of Applied Sciences, in short Lapland UAS, is a Finnish polytechnic university located in the cities of Kemi, Tornio and Rovaniemi. It was founded on January 1, 2014 as a merger between Rovaniemi University of Applied Sciences and Kemi-Tornio University of Applied Sciences. The merger carried over all the features of the previous organizations in an expanded organization form.
Kauko Ensio Seppänen was a Finnish sculptor, professor (1978) and sculpture pioneer in Lapland. He created a total of 127 public sculptures. On the occasion of his crafting more public sculptures than any other artist in Finland, the 7 September 1984 issue of Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat bore the headline "Sculptor Ensio Seppänen, is a Finnish record man".
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.
