Where is Lapland?
 

In work on Friday some of the lads were having one of those nothing conversations just talking rubbish how men do. One of the lads came out with a half-hearted attemp at humour with "if I won the lottery I would go to Lapland for the dancing" which then lead onto where exactly is Lapland?

We were all of the opinion that it is in Scandinavia but the guessing went from Norway to Iceland; Greenland; Sweden and Finland. I have had a look on the net and I still cannot get a definative answer. From what I did find I think that Lapland is a region spanning some of the nations already mentioned but I still cannot settle the argument until I know exactly where Lapland is. I know we have tfp members in that part of the world and I am counting on your help to make me look like a genius to my mates in work.

the northern area of norway, finland, sweden and russia kola pennisula

he's right...

In Sweden:

http://www.svearike.com/landskap/med...r/landskap.gif

http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapponia

almost made it there when I was in finland... but I want to see it when we can stay in the ice hotel

I think it's the private room at the local strip club.

That is about what i was going to say, or something to that effect.

I am from Finland, so I am sure about this. Lappi aka Lapland is a northern part of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. The natives of lapland (saamelaiset aka sami people) traditionally lived by herding reindeer for meat and milk so they have to move around and live in one spot at winter and one place at summer time cos of the animals so they the wandering people didn't respect official borders of nations. They speak their own language (The language is called "saame" in Finnish, dunno what's that in English, sami probably), actually 9 so distict dialects that they are counted as separate languages and have a flag, they are proud of their ethnicity but are not a politically fueled group to get independent state or anything. They are disappearing, people are blending to the main culture and moving to cities and give up the traditional lifestyle.

BTW: While the people in The States think Santa lives at North Pole (and there are other traditions of his whereabouts around the World), Santa Claus is believed to live in a mountain at the Finnish region of Lapland. Lapland is where the cloudberries come from and Finland's Lapland is full of ski resorts.

http://www.scandinavica.com/sami.htm

Interesting sidenote suviko. Guess you learn something new everyday.... ;)

Yeah!......... What Suviko said.

What was a throw away line by one of the lads in work has really caught the imagination in my work place. On Monday I had to listen to others who had done their home work and knew that Lapland was in Finland and another who insisted it was Norway and while not wrong they didn't have the tfp to get the full story. Thanks to you all for responding I was able to put a few people straight, I even printed off some of the replies from; charliex; Mehoni; and suviko and much to my surprise the people I work with were genuinely interested.