Rovaniemi, Lapland, Finland

🇫🇮 Rovaniemi is a city and municipality of Finland. It is the administrative capital and commercial centre of Finland's northernmost province, Lapland, and its southern part Peräpohjola. The city centre is situated about 6 km (4 miles) south of the Arctic Circle and is between the hills of Ounasvaara and Korkalovaara, at the confluence of the river Kemijoki and its tributary, the Ounasjoki. It is the second-largest city of the Northern Finland after Oulu, and, together with the capital city Helsinki, it is one of Finland's most significant tourist cities in terms of foreign tourism.

The city and the surrounding Rovaniemen maalaiskunta (Rural municipality of Rovaniemi) were consolidated into a single entity in 2006. Rovaniemi is a unilingual Finnish-speaking municipality and, uncommonly for larger Finnish towns, it is also known by its Finnish name and spelling in the Swedish language.

The coat of arms of Rovaniemi was designed by Toivo Vuorela. Its explanation is “in the green field, a silver pall with light-height upper branches; accompanied by a golden flame in the upper corner“. It was originally approved on 15 August 1956 by the Rovaniemi Rural Municipal Council and confirmed on October 26 at the Ministry of the Interior as the coat of arms of the Rovaniemi Rural Council.

Name The rova part in the name Rovaniemi has often been considered to be of Saami origin, as roavve in Northern Saami denotes a forested ridge or hill or the site of an old forest fire. The niemi part of the name means "cape". The name of the town in the Saami languages spoken in Finland are Inari Sami: Ruávinjargâ, Northern Sami: Roavenjárga and Roavvenjárga and Skolt Sami: Ruäʹvnjargg.

History Periodic clearance of new land for agriculture and the practice of slash-and-burn cultivation began around 750–530 BC. Artifacts found in the area suggest that an increasing number of travellers from Karelia in the east, Häme in the south and the Arctic Ocean coast in the north must have come there from 500 AD onwards. The Sami are indigenous to Lapland.

Rovaniemi is first mentioned by name in official documents in 1453, existing as a set of small villages whose inhabitants earned their living mainly in agriculture and animal husbandry—with fishing and hunting the most important offshoots.

The exploitation of Lapland's natural resources in the 1800s boosted Rovaniemi's growth. Extensive logging sites and gold fever attracted thousands of people to Lapland. As the mining of natural resources was increased, Rovaniemi became the business centre of the province of Lapland.

The township decree was promulgated on 27 June 1928, as a result of which Rovaniemi seceded from the old rural municipality as its own market town on 1 January 1929.

Second World War During the Second World War, Finland signed the Moscow Armistice on 19 September 1944 and was required to expell forces of its former German ally. In the Lapland War retreating German forces utilised scorched earth tactics, and though initially German General Lothar Rendulic ordered only the public buildings in Rovaniemi to be destroyed, on 13 October 1944, the German army received orders to destroy all the buildings in Rovaniemi, only excluding hospitals and houses where inhabitants were present.

While the German rearguard was going about the destruction, an ammunition train in Rovaniemi station exploded and set fire to the wooden houses of the town. The German troops suffered many casualties, mainly from glass splinters. A Finnish commando unit claimed to have blown up the ammunition train and may well have been the primary cause of the town's ruin. The cause was then unknown and assumed to be the deliberate intent of Rendulic. During these hostilities, 90% of all the buildings in Rovaniemi were destroyed. There is a German cemetery 19 km from Rovaniemi where soldiers killed fighting in Lapland during the war are buried.

Although there has been continuous human settlement in the Rovaniemi area since at least the Stone Age, few of the buildings date back before 1944, since most of the city was destroyed during the Second World War. When the city was rebuilt, it was designed with input by the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, who planned the city's footprint in the shape of a reindeer's head, with the city roads forming the antlers, and the local sports stadium as the reindeer's eye.

Population The city of Rovaniemi has 65,285 inhabitants, making it the 17th most populous municipality in Finland. The Rovaniemi region has a population of 68,884. In Rovaniemi, 4.1% of the population has a foreign background, which is below the national average.

Languages Rovaniemi is a monolingual Finnish-speaking municipality. The majority of the population - 61,699 people or 95.6% - speak Finnish as their first language. In Rovaniemi, 137 people, or 0.2% of the population, speak Swedish. The number of Sámi speakers, Finland's third official language, is 143 inhabitants, or 0.3% of the population. 3.9% of the population of Rovaniemi have a mother tongue other than Finnish, Swedish or Sámi. As English and Swedish are compulsory school subjects, functional bilingualism or trilingualism acquired through language studies is not uncommon.

At least 40 different languages are spoken in Rovaniemi. The most common foreign languages are Russian (0.6%), English (0.3%), Arabic (0.3%) and Chinese (0.3%).

Immigration In 2022, there were 2,635 persons with a migrant background living in Rovaniemi, or 4.1% of the population. The number of residents who were born abroad was 3,278, or 5.1% of the population. The number of persons with foreign citizenship living in Rovaniemi was 1,795. Most foreign-born citizens came from the Sweden, former Soviet Union, China and Russia.

The relative share of immigrants in Rovaniemi's population is below to the national average. However, the city's new residents are increasingly of foreign origin. This will increase the proportion of foreign residents in the coming years.

Religion In 2022, the Evangelical Lutheran Church was the largest religious group with 70.6% of the population of Rovaniemi. Other religious groups accounted for 1.6% of the population. 27.7% of the population had no religious affiliation.

Of the revival movements within the church, Conservative Laestadianism is particularly active in the locality, with three peace associations in the locality: the Rovaniemi Peace Association, the Rautionsaari Peace Association and the Viirinkylä Peace Association.

Other local communities include the Rovaniemi Pentecostal Church, a member of the Finnish Pentecostal Church, and the Rovaniemi Adventist Church, part of the Finnish Adventist Church.

Economy Since Rovaniemi is the capital of the region of Lapland, many government institutions have their offices there. About 10,000 of the inhabitants are students. Rovaniemi is home to not only the University of Lapland but also the Lapland University of Applied Sciences (formerly known as the Rovaniemi Polytechnic), which comprises institutes of information and traditional technology, business, health and social care, culinary studies, forestry, rural studies, and sports. Local newspapers include the Lapin Kansa, Uusi Rovaniemi and Lappilainen.

Economy: Tourist Industry Because of the unspoiled nature of the area and numerous recreational opportunities, tourism is an important industry in Rovaniemi. The city has a number of hotels and restaurants located both in the centre and on the outskirts of the town, hosting over 481,000 visitors in 2013. Tourism can be seen and heard in the city's streetscape, at the Arctic Circle and at Rovaniemi Airport, one of Finland´s busiest airports in terms of passenger numbers.

Rovaniemi is also considered by Finns to be the official home town of Santa Claus. It is home to the Santa Claus Village at the Arctic Circle and SantaPark Arctic World, which is located 8 km (5 mi) north of the centre.

Directly across the river from the town is the Ounasvaara ski centre. There have been recreational activities in the Ounasvaara area since 1927, when the first winter sports were also organized. The top of the Ounasvaara hill bears the site of some of the earliest known human settlements in the area.

A phenomenon also attracting numerous tourists is the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights. In Finnish Lapland, the number of auroral displays can be as high as 200 a year, whereas in southern Finland, the number is usually fewer than 20.

Attractions Rovaniemi's most prominent landmarks include the Jätkänkynttilä bridge with its eternal flame over the Kemijoki river, the Arktikum Science Museum, which rises out of the bank of the Ounasjoki river, the Rovaniemi city hall, the Lappia Hall, which serves as a theatre, concert hall, and congress centre, and the library.

The last three mentioned buildings are designed by Alvar Aalto. The Arktikum Science Museum is a comprehensive museum of Finland's, and the world's, Arctic regions.

Sport The city is home to the football clubs Rovaniemen Palloseura, or RoPS, part of the Veikkausliiga, the Finnish premier division, and FC Santa Claus, part of the third division; to the ice hockey team Rovaniemen Kiekko, or RoKi, whose home arena is Lappi Areena and which competes in Mestis, the second-highest league in Finland; and to the volleyball team called Team Lakkapää (formerly Rovaniemen Santasport and Perungan Pojat), which plays in the Finland Volleyball League and won the national championship in 2003, 2007, 2008 and 2011. The Rovaniemi Nordmen, an American Football team, was formed in 2013 and has played at various levels throughout the Finnish American Football Association.

Rovaniemi has hosted several international ski competition, including the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 1984, several FIS Nordic Combined World Cup and FIS Ski Jumping Continental Cup events, the 2005 FIS Nordic Junior World Ski Championships, the 1970 Winter Universiade and the 2008 Winter Transplant Games.

In 2021, Rovaniemi hosted the World Rally Championship for 2021 Arctic Rally Finland, the first WRC event held inside the Arctic Circle.

Transport VR Group, the Finnish state railway system, operates direct daytime and overnight passenger trains from Rovaniemi Station to Oulu, Tampere, Helsinki and Turku. Diesel-powered passenger trains operated north-east of Rovaniemi to Kemijärvi until March 2014, when electrification to Kemijärvi was completed. Rovaniemi Airport is located about 10 km (6 mi) north of the Rovaniemi city centre, and it is the third-busiest airport in Finland after Helsinki-Vantaa Airport and Oulu Airport. The busiest time for the airport is in the Christmas season, when many people go on Santa Flights.