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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 highland Swedish municipality Gällivare is sometimes also considered part of Meänmaa due to the large share of Meänkieli-speaking population in it. Meänkieli surnames and village names are common on the Swedish side of the border to this day, in spite of the dominance of the Swedish language in the area. The Finnish side of the border has standard Finnish as the sole spoken language. History and culture The cultural environment around the Torne River is characterized by agriculture, reindeer farming and fishing. Meänmaa was one of the oldest inhabited areas in northern F ...
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Tornedalians
Tornedalians (; ; ) are an Ethnicity, ethnic Minority group, minority native to the Torne Valley (Meänmaa) region in northern Sweden and Finland. Tornedalians were officially recognized as a national minority in Sweden in 2000. Tornedalians divide themselves into three distinct groups: Tornedalians, Kvens, and Lantalaiset. Etymology The English word ''Tornedalian'' derives from the Swedish name for the Torne Valley, ''Tornedalen''. The Swedish word Tornedalen derives from the archaic Finnic word ''tornio'' meaning ''spear'' and the Swedish word ''dal'' which means valley. Language Meänkieli, or Tornedalian, is the language or dialect spoken by Tornedalians. While Meänkieli is recognised in Sweden as one of the Official minority languages of Sweden, country's five minority languages, its status as an independent language is sometimes disputed due to its high mutual intelligibility with Finnish. It belongs to the Uralic language family. History Finnic populations first be ...
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Meänkieli
(literally 'our language'), or Tornedalian is a Finnic language or a group of distinct Finnish dialects spoken in the northernmost part of Sweden, particularly along the Torne River Valley. It is officially recognized in Sweden as one of the country's five minority languages and is treated as a separate language from Finnish. According to the National Association of Swedish Tornedalians, 70,000 individuals understand Meänkieli, at least to some level. Meänkieli is particularly similar to the Kven language and the Peräpohjola dialects of Finnish spoken in Finland, and it is strongly mutually intelligible with them. Its status as an independent language is sometimes disputed due to this high degree of mutual intelligibility. However, Meänkieli contains strong influences from Swedish and has preserved some archaic features that even the Northern Finnish dialects have lost. It also differs from Standard Finnish because it does not include the language changes and new words ...
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Torne (Finnish And Swedish River)
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. In the upper parts, the river is situated in Sweden before it meets the Muonio River where it adjoins the international border. It rises at the lake Torneträsk near the border with Norway and flows generally southeast for a distance of into the Gulf of Bothnia. It is the largest river in Norrbotten County both by length and by watershed area. At its source, the Torne is located close to the North Atlantic and Narvik on the other side of the watershed, with several thousands of kilometres between the locations via waterways. Geography The Torne basin has a total area of or (see sidebar). Of this, or is in Sweden,
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Tornio
Tornio (; ; ; ) is a city and municipalities of Finland, municipality in Lapland, Finland. The city forms a cross-border Twin cities, twin city together with Haparanda on the Swedish side. The municipality covers an area of , of which is water. The population density is , with a total population of (). Tornio is unilingually Finnish language, Finnish with a negligible number of native Swedish language, Swedish speakers, although this does not count vast numbers of bilinguals who speak Swedish as a second language, with an official target of universal working bilingualism for both border municipalities. History The River delta, delta of the Torne (Finnish and Swedish river), Torne River has been inhabited since the end of the Last glacial period, last ice age, and there are currently (1995) 16 settlement sites known in the area, similar to those found in Vuollerim (). The Swedish part of the region is not far from the oldest permanent settlement site found in Scandinavia ...
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Meänkieli Dialects
(literally 'our language'), or Tornedalian is a Finnic language or a group of distinct Finnish dialects spoken in the northernmost part of Sweden, particularly along the Torne River Valley. It is officially recognized in Sweden as one of the country's five minority languages and is treated as a separate language from Finnish. According to the National Association of Swedish Tornedalians, 70,000 individuals understand Meänkieli, at least to some level. Meänkieli is particularly similar to the Kven language and the Peräpohjola dialects of Finnish spoken in Finland, and it is strongly mutually intelligible with them. Its status as an independent language is sometimes disputed due to this high degree of mutual intelligibility. However, Meänkieli contains strong influences from Swedish and has preserved some archaic features that even the Northern Finnish dialects have lost. It also differs from Standard Finnish because it does not include the language changes and new words ...
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Geography Of Lapland (Finland)
There are a number of national parks within Lapland Province in Finland, as well as in Swedish Lapland in the western parts of Västerbotten County and Norrbotten County. The Laponian area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural .... Northern Lapland within Norrbotten County National parks: * Abisko * Muddus * Padjelanta * Pieljekaise * Sarek * Stora Sjöfallet * Vadvetjåkka Southern Lappland within Västerbotten County National parks: * Björnlandet Eastern Lappland within Lapland Province National parks: * Pyhä-Luosto National Park * Lemmenjoki National Park * Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park * Urho Kekkonen National Park See also * Lappmarken Sápmi {{Lapland-geo-stub ...
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Sub-regions Of Finland
Sub-regions (, ) are divisions used for Statistics, statistical purposes in Finland. The country is divided into 69 sub-regions, which are formed by groups of Municipalities of Finland, municipalities within the 19 regions of Finland. These sub-regions represent a Local administrative unit, LAU 1 level of division used in conjunction with the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics. Each municipality is a member of a sub-region based on cooperation between municipalities and the Commuting, commuter area. The member municipalities must be from the same region. Sub-regions were introduced as administrative divisions in 1994. Sub-region are no longer an official regional administrative divisions since 2014, but it is still valid for statistical purposes. Sub-regions grouped by regions Lapland, Finland, Lapland (1) *Eastern Lapland *Kemi-Tornio sub-region *Northern Lapland *Rovaniemi sub-region *Torne Valley Sub-region, Torne Valley *Tunturi Lapland, i.e. Fell Lapland ...
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French Geodesic Mission To Lapland
The French Geodesic Mission to Lapland was one of the two geodesic missions carried out in 1736–1737 by the French Academy of Sciences for measuring the shape of the Earth. One expedition was sent to Ecuador to perform measurements near the Equator; the other was sent to Torne Valley to perform measurements near the Arctic Circle. The expedition to Torne Valley was led by Pierre Louis Maupertuis. As Swedish representative, professor Anders Celsius joined the team. The expedition arrived in Tornio on June 19, 1736, spent the rest of 1736 making measurements, and returned to France on June 10, 1737. By measuring the length of the arc, Maupertuis's team was able to prove that the Earth is, indeed, flattened at the poles as Sir Isaac Newton had predicted. The books describing this trip, written by Maupertuis and Réginald Outhier, have given us much information about the nature and culture of 18th-century Lapland, and the books have inspired many travellers to head to Torne Vall ...
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Swedish Language
Swedish ( ) is a North Germanic languages, North Germanic language from the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family, spoken predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland. It has at least 10 million native speakers, making it the Germanic_languages#Statistics, fourth most spoken Germanic language, and the first among its type in the Nordic countries overall. Swedish, like the other North Germanic languages, Nordic languages, is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Age. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian language, Norwegian and Danish language, Danish, although the degree of mutual intelligibility is dependent on the dialect and accent of the speaker. Standard Swedish, spoken by most Swedes, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century, and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional Variety ( ...
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Northern Sámi
Northern Sámi or North Sámi ( ; ; ; ; ; disapproved exonym Lappish or Lapp) is the most widely spoken of all Sámi languages. The area where Northern Sámi is spoken covers the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Geographic distribution The number of Northern Sámi speakers is estimated to be somewhere between 15,000 and 25,000. About 2,000 of these live in Finland and between 5,000 and 6,000 in Sweden, with the remaining portions being in Norway. Based on the highest estimates above of 18,000 speakers in Norway, and Statistics Norway estimating the total population of Norway to be 5,594,340 at the start of 2025, this gives the percentage of Northern Sámi speakers in Norway as approximately 0.32%. Similar calculations for Sweden and Finland give them as 0.05% and 0.03% respectively in those countries. History Among the first printed Sámi texts is ("Swedish and Lappish ABC book"), written in Swedish and what is likely a form of Northern Sámi. It was published ...
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Kiruna
(; ; ; ) is the northernmost Stad (Sweden), city in Sweden, situated in the province of Lapland, Sweden, Lapland. It had 17,002 inhabitants in 2016 and is the seat of Kiruna Municipality (population: 23,167 in 2016) in Norrbotten County. The city was originally built in the 1890s to serve the Kiruna Mine. The Esrange Space Center was established in Kiruna in the 1960s. Also in Kiruna are the Institute of Space Physics (Sweden), Institute of Space Physics and Luleå University of Technology's Department of Space Science. History Origins Archaeological findings have shown that the region around Kiruna has been inhabited for at least 6,000 years. Centuries before Kiruna was founded in 1900, the presence of iron ore at Kiirunavaara and Luossavaara had been known by the local Sámi people, Sámi population. In 1696, Samuel Mört, a bookkeeper of the Kengis works, wrote on rumours about the presence of iron in the two hills.Kummu 1997, p. 96. The ore became better known afte ...
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