Lapland

Lapland, Sami Sápmi, Finnish Lapi or Lappi, Swedish Lappland, region of northern Europe largely within the Arctic Circle, stretching across northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland and into the Kola Peninsula of Russia. It is bounded by the Norwegian Sea on the west, the Barents Sea on the north, and the White Sea on the east. Lapland, the conventional name for the region, is derived from Lapp, the name Scandinavians ascribed to the Sami people, who have sparsely inhabited the region for several thousand years. Today the Sami consider Lapp to be a derogatory term. They call the region Sápmi. Lapland straddles several national borders and does not exist as any unified administrative entity.

Lapland is a region of great topographical variety. To the west it embraces the northern part of the Kolen Mountains, which reach elevations of more than 6,500 feet (2,000 metres). On its Norwegian (western) side this range slopes abruptly and is deeply eroded into fjords and headlands and fractured into archipelagoes. The eastern flank of the range, which is situated in Swedish Lapland (see Lappland), slopes more gradually into a broad piedmont studded with large, fingerlike lakes that feed the rivers flowing into the Gulf of Bothnia. Farther to the east, Finnish Lapland (Lappi) is a relatively low-lying region with many bogs and small lakes.

Norwegian Lapland is largely open and windswept, with timber growth only in sheltered tracts and the more protected interior. Southern and central Lapland occupies the zone of the taiga, or swampy coniferous forest, with its saturated land and many bogs and swamps. Forests of pine and spruce give way to the dwarf birch, heath, and lichens of the tundra farther north and at higher elevations.

Many of the Sami have adopted a sedentary life and intermarried with Scandinavians and Finns. The region is still home to several hundred thousand reindeer, but the traditional reindeer country has been intruded upon by permanent farming, forestry, mining, and hydroelectric and even industrial enterprises. Those who practice reindeer herding have liberty of movement across the open boundaries of Finland, Norway, and Sweden.