Two cities and three other municipalities form the Sea Lapland area: The city of Tornio and the city of Kemi, and the municipalities of Keminmaa, Simo and Tervola. The three rivers, the Simojoki, Kemijoki and Tornionjoki, all flowing down to the Gulf of Bothnia, are situated in the region.[1] Tornio is also called TornioHaparanda together with the neighbouring border city Haparanda. The population of the area is around 60 000 inhabitants.[2]
Industry, trade, seafaring, agriculture and tourism are important means of livelihood in Sea Lapland.[3] Known sights are for example The Snowcastle in Kemi, Icebreaker Sampo and the Kukkolankoski village.[4]
Haparanda Municipality, is a municipality in Norrbotten County in northern Sweden. Its seat is located in Haparanda.
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 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. The Arctic circle crosses Lapland, so polar phenomena such as the midnight sun and polar night can be seen in Lapland.
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 17.97 inhabitants per square kilometre (46.5/sq mi), with a total population of 21,326. It borders the Swedish municipality of Haparanda.
The Torne, also known as the Tornio, is a river in northern Sweden and Finland. For approximately half of its length it defines the border between these two countries. It rises at Lake Torne near the border with Norway and flows generally southeast for a distance of 522 kilometres (324 mi) into the Gulf of Bothnia. It is the largest river in Norrbotten both by length and by watershed area.
Meänmaa, or sometimes Torne Valley or Torne River Valley lies at the border of Sweden and Finland. It is named after the Torne River flowing through the valley and into the Gulf of Bothnia. Geographically the townships and municipalities that make up the area are Haparanda, Övertorneå, Pajala and Kiruna in Sweden, and Tornio, Ylitornio, Pello, Kolari, Muonio and Enontekiö in Finland. Culturally the Swedish municipality Gällivare is also considered part of Meänmaa due to the large share of Meänkieli-speaking population in it. Torne Valley should not be confused with Torne Valley Sub-region.
Haparanda is a locality and the seat of Haparanda Municipality in Norrbotten County, Sweden. It is adjacent to Tornio, Finland. Haparanda had a population of 4,856 in 2010, of out of a municipal total of 10,200 inhabitants.
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 Bothnian Bay or Bay of Bothnia is the northernmost part of the Gulf of Bothnia, which is in turn the northern part of the Baltic Sea. The land holding the bay is still rising after the weight of ice-age glaciers has been removed, and within 2,000 years the bay will be a large freshwater lake since its link to the south Kvarken is mostly less than 20 metres (66 ft) deep. The bay today is fed by several large rivers, and is relatively unaffected by tides, so has low salinity. It freezes each year for up to six months. Compared to other parts of the Baltic it has little plant or animal life.
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.
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.
The Haparanda Line is a 165-kilometer (103 mi) long railway line between Boden and Haparanda in Sweden. There is a 3-kilometer (1.9 mi) long section from Haparanda to Torneå, which is on the Finnish side of the Finland–Sweden border. The line is the only Swedish railway to the Finnish border.
Sampo is a Finnish icebreaker built in 1960 in Helsinki and now stationed in Kemi.
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 against the Soviet Union since 1941 during the Continuation War (1941–1944), peace negotiations had already been conducted intermittently during 1943–1944 between Finland, the Western Allies and the USSR, 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 after 15 September 1944.
The Peräpohjola dialects are forms of Finnish spoken in Lapland in Finland, Sweden, and Norway. The dialect group belongs to the Western Finnish dialects and it is divided into five more specific dialect groups.
The Province of Lapland was a province of Finland from 1938 to 2009.
The Finland–Sweden border is the border between the countries of Finland and Sweden. Almost the entire border runs through water: along the Tornio River and its tributaries, and in the Gulf of Bothnia. Only a few kilometres of the border are on dry land. Because of the Schengen treaty and the Nordic Passport Union, the border can be crossed mostly freely.
Hanhinkari is an island in the northeast of the Swedish sector of the Bothnian Bay, in the Haparanda archipelago.
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