Rovaniemi

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.

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 Sápmi.

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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[11]

During World War II, Finland signed the Moscow Armistice on 19 September 1944 and was required to expel 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,^[12] only excluding hospitals and houses where inhabitants were present.^[13]

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.^{[citation needed]} During these hostilities, 90% of all the buildings in Rovaniemi were destroyed.^[12][14] 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 World War II. When the city was rebuilt, it was designed with input by the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto,^[12] 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.^[15]

Due to its location near the Arctic Circle, Rovaniemi has a subarctic climate (Köppen Dfc) with short, pleasant summers, while the winters are long, cold and snowy. The city lies just south of the 0 °C (32 °F) mean annual isotherm, but freezing in the soil is very limited even during the winter due to typical heavy snow cover. Its extreme northerly location combined with frequent overcast skies leads to very low levels of sunshine in the winter months; December averages just under six minutes of sunshine daily.

Winters are somewhat modified by marine air from the North Atlantic Current that ensures average temperatures are less extreme than expected for an inland area at such a northerly latitude.

On 26 April 2019, Rovaniemi recorded its warmest April day on record with 19 °C (66 °F).^[16]

 

The average annual temperature in Rovaniemi is 0.9 °C (33.6 °F). Snow stays on the ground 175 days a year on average. The lowest temperature ever recorded at the airport is −38.1 °C (−37 °F), recorded on 28 January 1999. However, on the same day temperatures as cold as -47.5 C were recorded at nearby weather stations.^[21] The highest temperature ever recorded is 32.2 °C (90 °F), recorded on 18 July 2018 at the railway station.^[22]

Despite the fact that Rovaniemi experiences polar day between 7 June and 6 July (30 days) it does not experience polar night. However, the sun barely gets above the horizon in the winter.^[23]

The city of Rovaniemi has 65,321 inhabitants, making it the 17th most populous municipality in Finland. The Rovaniemi region has a population of 68,899. In Rovaniemi, 4.9% of the population has a foreign background, which is below the national average.^[24]

Rovaniemi is a monolingual Finnish-speaking municipality. The majority of the population - 61,862 people or 94.8% - speak Finnish as their first language. In Rovaniemi, 143 people, or 0.2% of the population, speak Swedish. The number of Sámi speakers, Finland's third official language, is 155 inhabitants, or 0.3% of the population.^[24] 4.7% of the population of Rovaniemi have a mother tongue other than Finnish, Swedish or Sámi.^[24] 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 (0.7%), English (0.4%), Arabic (0.3%), Chinese (0.3%) and Ukrainian (0.3%).^[24]

Population by country of birth (2022)[25]
Nationality	Population	%
Finland	61,257	94.9
Sweden	805	1.2
Soviet Union	212	0.3
China	164	0.3
Russia	162	0.3
Thailand	118	0.2
Iraq	100	0.2
Afghanistan	93	0.2
Germany	76	0.1
Syria	73	0.1
Estonia	69	0.1
Other	1,406	2.2

As of 2023^[update], there were 3,219 persons with a migrant background living in Rovaniemi, or 4.9% of the population.^{[note 1]} The number of residents who were born abroad was 3,847, or 5.9% of the population. The number of persons with foreign citizenship living in Rovaniemi was 2,350.^[24] Most foreign-born citizens came from the Sweden, former Soviet Union, China and Russia.^[25]

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.

In 2023, the Evangelical Lutheran Church was the largest religious group with 69.1% of the population of Rovaniemi. Other religious groups accounted for 1.6% of the population. 29.3% of the population had no religious affiliation.^[27]

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,^[28] the Rautionsaari Peace Association^[29] and the Viirinkylä Peace Association.^[30]

Other local communities include the Rovaniemi Pentecostal Church, a member of the Finnish Pentecostal Church,^[31] and the Rovaniemi Adventist Church, part of the Finnish Adventist Church.^[32]

 

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.

 

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.^[33] 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.^[34]

 

Rovaniemi is also considered by Finns to be the official home town of Santa Claus.^[35][36][37] 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.^[38] There have been recreational activities in the Ounasvaara area since 1927,^[39] when the first winter sports were also organized.^[40] 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.^[41] 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.

 

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.

 

The city is home to the football clubs Rovaniemen Palloseura, or RoPS, part of Ykkönen, the Finnish third division, and FC Santa Claus, part of the sixth 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.^[42]

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.

 

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 northeast of Rovaniemi to Kemijärvi until March 2014, when electrification to Kemijärvi was completed. Rovaniemi Airport is located about 10 kilometres (6 mi) north of the Rovaniemi city centre, and it is the second-busiest airport in Finland after Helsinki-Vantaa Airport^[43] The busiest time for the airport is in the Christmas season, when many people go on Santa Flights.^[44]

• Snowboarder and 2005 Winter X Games gold medalist Antti Autti, Rovaniemi native, in April 2005 received his own piece of land in the city for being named to the 2006 Finnish Olympic team
• Antti Iivari (born 1992), ice hockey player
• writer Timo K. Mukka died in Rovaniemi in 1974
• Nätti-Jussi ("Pretty John"), legendary lumberjack and forester
• Harri Olli, ski jumper
• Tanja Poutiainen Alpine skier
• Tomi Putaansuu, better known as Mr. Lordi lead singer of the hard rock band and 2006 Eurovision Song Contest winner Lordi
• Jari Tervo, author
• Miia Tervo, film director
• Antti Tuisku, singer
• Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi, said to be the residence of Father Christmas^[35][36][37]
• Progressive rock band Absoluuttinen Nollapiste
• The black metal band Beherit came from Rovaniemi

Rovaniemi is twinned with:^[45]

In March 2022, Rovaniemi suspended the agreement with Murmansk, Russia due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.^[46]

 

A 1996 Christmas episode of Tots TV called "Lapland Out" took place in Rovaniemi.

The 1998 Spanish romantic film Lovers of the Arctic Circle (Los amantes del Círculo Polar), by director Julio Medem, partly takes place in Rovaniemi.

Rovaniemi appears in the video game Tom Clancy's EndWar as a possible battlefield. In the game, Rovaniemi houses military facilities critical to a missile shield for a European Federation.^[47]

Rovaniemi is a central scene in a documentary film Reindeerspotting.

TV-Star Bam Margera and his friends travelled to Rovaniemi in their film Bam Margera Presents: Where the ♯$&% Is Santa? in order to find Santa Claus who is assumed to live in Rovaniemi.

A version of the music video for Lordi's song "Hard Rock Hallelujah" was filmed near Rovaniemi for the opening of the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest.^[48] After winning the contest, a square called the Lordi's Square (Lordin aukio) in the city center of Rovaniemi has been named after the band.^[49]

The video for the Nightwish single "The Islander" was filmed in Rovaniemi by Stobe Harju.

 

Rovaniemi used to have the northernmost location of any McDonald's in the world from 1997^[50][51] until the opening of a McDonald's in Murmansk in 2013, 23 years after it first opened in that country.^[52] However, the title of the northernmost in the world returned to Rovaniemi in 2022, when in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, all Russian McDonald's restaurants were closed, and rebranded to Vkusno i tochka.^[53] In January 2024, Rovaniemi once again lost the title of having the northernmost McDonald's in the world as a new restaurant opened in Tromsø, Norway.^[54]

Rovaniemi appears as one location of Gavin Lyall's 1963 book The Most Dangerous Game, a spy-thriller set in Lapland and the northern USSR.

Rovaniemi was featured in the first episode of The Reluctant Traveler.

• Pilke House
• University of the Arctic

• "The dark, ruined city that became the home of Christmas" (Video and Text). Quest's World of Wonder (CNN Travel).
• Rikkinen, K. A Geography of Finland. Lahti: University of Helsinki (1992)
• Rovaniemi: Arctic Circle – Finland. Helsinki: Oy Sevenprint Ltd (1998)

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rovaniemi.

 

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Rovaniemi.

• City of Rovaniemi – official website (in English)
• Visit Rovaniemi (in English)
• Rovaniemi - Santa's Hometown & Capital of Lapland – Visit Finnish Lapland (in English)
• Satellite view of Rovaniemi
• Lunch restaurants and weekly lunch menu in Rovaniemi