LAPLAND PROVINCE

:''For Lappland, the largest province in Sweden, see Lapland, Sweden.''
'Province of Lapland' (''Lappi'' in Finnish and Sami, ''Lappland'' in Swedish) is one of the Provinces of Finland. The municipalities in the province cooperate in a Regional Council, which also makes it the 'Region of Lapland'. It borders the Province of Oulu and the Region of North Ostrobothnia in the south. It also borders to the Gulf of Bothnia, Norrbotten County in Sweden, Finnmark County in Norway and to Murmansk Oblast in Russia. In some parts of the world, particularly Britain and Finland itself, it is considered the traditional home of Père Noël.

Contents

Historical Provinces

Population

Administration

Regional Council

Sami Domicile Area

Municipalities

Heraldry

See also

External links

Historical Provinces

:''For History, Geography and Culture see: Laponia, Österbotten and Västerbotten''
Lapland was separated from the province of Oulu in 1936. After the Second World War, the Petsamo and Salla areas were ceded to the Soviet Union.

Population

Lapland is home only to about 3.6% of the Finnish population, and is by far the least densely populated area in the country. The biggest towns in the Finnish Lapland are Rovaniemi (the provincial capital), Kemi, and Tornio. Of the more than 185 000 inhabitants, less than 5% are Sami people.

Administration

Main articles: Lapland State Provincial Office

The State Provincial Office is a joint regional authority of seven different ministries. It promotes national and regional objectives of the State central administration.

Regional Council

Main articles: Lapland 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''.

Sami Domicile Area

The northermost 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

Main articles: Municipalities of Lapland

Those in 'bold' are cities:

★ Enontekiö ★ Inari ★ 'Kemi' ★ 'Kemijärvi' ★ Keminmaa ★ Kittilä ★ Kolari ★ Muonio ★ Pelkosenniemi ★ Pello ★ Posio

★ Ranua ★ 'Rovaniemi' ★ Salla ★ Savukoski ★ Simo ★ Sodankylä ★ Tervola ★ 'Tornio' ★ Utsjoki ★ Ylitornio

Heraldry

Main articles: Heraldry of Laponia

The coat of arms for the ''Province of Lapland'' is composed out of the coats of arms of Laponia and Österbotten. The ''Regional Council of Lapland'' uses the Finnish variation of the coat of arms for Laponia.

See also

★ Lappmarken

★ Lääni

★ Sami people

★ Sápmi (area)

External links

★ Lapland State Provincial Office - Official site

★ Lapland Regional Council - Official site

★ The Tourism Expert - Lapland links in 10 languages

★ on Wikitravel

★ [1] - Videos about Finnish Lapland