Kiruna - Filled With Contrast

Kiruna is in many ways a place of extremes. Most other communities have begun their history as a small seed, sprouting and then slowly growing. Kiruna was planted in the wilderness nearly 120 years ago, fertilised with adventurers and know-how, and then veritably exploded. Here the light is lighter, the cold is colder, the peaks are higher, the spaces bigger and the location further north than anywhere else in Sweden.
A very special place.

With its 19,447 square kilometres, Kiruna Municipality is as big as the Swedish counties of Skåne, Blekinge and Halland together. It is half the size of the Netherlands - where over 16 million people live. In Kiruna Municipality, just over 23,000 people share the half as many square kilometres. That is almost a square kilometre per person. More than 18,000 of them live in the town of Kiruna, the rest of them living in about 50 villages. Kiruna has three native languages, the Swedish, Sámi and Tornedalen Finnish cultures living side-by-side.