Lapland (region)

Lapland (region)

Lapland is a region in northern Fennoscandia, largely within the Arctic Circle. It stretches across Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. On the north it is bounded by the Barents Sea, on the west by the Norwegian Sea and on the east by the White Sea.

The name Lapland refers to land inhabited by the Sami people, formerly called Lapp people, which is now considered derogatory, who are the minority indigenous people of the region. Due to this, some define "Lappland" as coterminus with Sápmi, the entire traditional area of the Sámi - on the north bounded by the Barents Sea, on the west by the Norwegian Sea and on the east by the White Sea.

However, the Norwegian and Russian parts of the area "Sápmi" are neither formally called "Lapland", nor considered part of "Lapland" by its inhabitants - although in recent times some parts of the area (such as Finnmark) has been marketed as "Lapland" for promoting tourism, although the Norwegian area mostly correspond to the larger region of Northern Norway. Formally, though, the name only survives in Finland and Sweden, where provinces bear the name.