Theme Week Lapland – Sodankylä

Friday, 26 August 2022 - 12:00 pm (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination:
Category/Kategorie: General
Reading Time:  2 minutes

Orajärvi village © Maasaak/cc-by-sa-4.0

Orajärvi village © Maasaak/cc-by-sa-4.0

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 Sámi.

The municipality has a population of 8,200 which makes it the fourth largest municipality in Lapland after Rovaniemi, Tornio and Kemi, and at the same time the largest municipality in population that does not use the title of city or town. It covers an area of 12,415.50 square kilometres (4,793.65 sq mi) of which 718.65 km² (277.47 sq mi) is water, making it the second largest municipality in Finland in terms of area, right after its neighboring municipality of Inari. The population density is 0.7 inhabitants per square kilometre (1.8/sq mi).
airfield. Also, one of EISCAT‘s scientific radar receiver stations is located outside Sodankylä, at the site of the Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory. The urban area around the observatory is known as “Tähtelä”, which translates as “Place of Stars”, although the observatory does not observe stars. The Jaeger Brigade of the Finnish Army is also located in Sodankylä. Although the name “Sodankylä” and (also “Soađegilli”) directly translate to “Village of War”, the etymology of the name is from a surname Sova rather than the word “war”.

Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory and Arctic Research Centre © Antti Leppänen/cc-by-sa-3.0 Sodankylä Old Church © BishkekRocks/cc-by-sa-3.0 Town centre of Sodankylä © BishkekRocks/cc-by-sa-3.0 Gold Village Tankavaara, reproductions of buildings of gold rush towns © Usm/cc-by-sa-4.0 Museum Gallery Alariesto © HeiPe/cc-by-sa-4.0 Orajärvi village © Maasaak/cc-by-sa-4.0
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Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory and Arctic Research Centre © Antti Leppänen/cc-by-sa-3.0
Among the key sights, events and destinations are:

  • Sodankylä Local History Museum
  • The Old Church (made 1689 of wood), The New Church (made 1859 of stone)
  • Tankavaara, gold museum, gold village
  • Ilmakkiaapa peatland protection area (35 km north)
  • Urho Kekkonen National Park (Koilliskaira Visitor Centre)
  • Luosto – a hill home to the only open amethyst mine in Europe
  • Hotel Sodankylä and Hotel Bear Inn (Hotelli Karhu)
  • Midnight Sun Film Festival (annually mid-June)
  • Museum-Gallery Alariesto (Andreas Alariesto’s life and artwork)
  • Pappilanniemi walking trail
  • Igloo village of Kakslauttanen

Here you can find the complete Overview of all Theme Weeks.

Read more on Sodankylä, VisitSodankyla.fi, Midnight Sun Film Festival, Tankavaara Gold Village, Wikivoyage Sodankylä and Wikipedia Sodankylä. Learn more about the use of photos. To inform you about latest news most of the city, town or tourism websites offer a newsletter service and/or operate Facebook pages/Twitter accounts. In addition more and more destinations, tourist organizations and cultural institutions offer Apps for your Smart Phone or Tablet, to provide you with a mobile tourist guide (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.




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