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== Economy ==
== Economy ==
{{Refimprove|section|date=February 2010}}
{{Refimprove|section|date=February 2010}}
The city's main employers are the City of Lappeenranta, [[UPM-Kymmene]], South Karelia Central Hospital, [[Lappeenranta University of Technology]], Paroc, [[Nordkalk]], VR-Group, [[Fazer]], The Armed Forces and [[Outotec]].{{Citation needed|date=February 2010}}
The city's main employers are the City of Lappeenranta, [[UPM-Kymmene]], South Karelia Central Hospital, [[Lappeenranta University of Technology]], Paroc, [[Nordkalk]], VR-Group, [[Fazer]], The Armed Forces and [[Outotec]].<ref>[http://www.lappeenranta.fi/?deptid=12047 Statistics]. (In Finnish) The city of Lappeenranta, 1-13-2011.</ref>


==Sports==
==Sports==

Revision as of 10:45, 13 January 2011

Template:Infobox Finnish municipality

Lappeenranta (Swedish: Villmanstrand) is a city and municipality that resides on the shore of the lake Saimaa in South-Eastern Finland, about 30 kilometres (19 mi) from the Russian border. It belongs to the region of South Karelia. With approximately Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". inhabitants (Error: Invalid time.) Lappeenranta is the Template:Infobox Finnish Municipality/population count sequenceth largest city in Finland.[1] The neighboring municipality of Joutseno was consolidated with Lappeenranta on January 1, 2009, and the neighboring municipality of Ylämaa on January 1, 2010.

History

The town was chartered in 1649 by Queen Christina of Sweden, legitimizing the trade at the then popular marketplace of Lapvesi.

In 1741 the battle of Villmanstrand was fought between the Swedish and Russian armies in the Russo-Swedish War of 1741–1743. The battle ended in a Russian victory.

Between November 1944 and August 1946, a Finnish concentration camp was located in the Lappeenranta fortress that held mostly Estonian volunteers and Ingrians who had fought on the Finnish side in the Continuation War. The prisoners were eventually handed over to Russians and sent to the GULAG concentration camp system in the Soviet Union.[2]

Name

The name Lappeenranta consists of the genitive of Lappee and the appellative ranta which means "shore". The history of Lappeenranta includes the rural municipality of Lappee and the hundred Lapvesi. The Swedish name Villmanstrand contains the words vildman meaning "wildman" and strand also meaning "shore". The wildman is depicted on Lappeenranta's coat of arms.

Services

Education

Lappeenranta has numerous schools at almost all levels of education, including the Lappeenranta University of Technology, South Karelia University of Applied Sciences, the Army Academy (branch of the Finnish Defence Forces), South Karelia Vocational College and South Karelia Adult Education Centre.

Transport

Lappeenranta is connected to neighbouring cities and municipalities by road, with railways heading north and south from the city.

During the summer, when Lake Saimaa and Saimaa Canal are accessible by water, there is a connection by ship from Lappeenranta to Vyborg, Russia.

There is also an international airport in Lappeenranta. Thanks to scheduled flights between Lappeenranta, Düsseldorf and Riga, the metropolises of Europe are within easy reach. Lappeenranta Airport is Finland’s fastest growing international airport with 364% growth in passenger numbers in 2010. Making a business or leisure trip to Brussels or London from Lappeenranta is no problem, especially after a direct route to Brussels-Charleroi opened in November 2010. Traffic Connections: Daily flights between Lappeenranta and Riga. Scheduled flights to Brussels (Charleroi), and Düsseldorf (Weeze). RyanAir will begin to fly to Milano (Bergamo) on the 30th of March 2011 and the flights are already being sold.

Fast train connections: to Helsinki in about 2 hours, and to St. Petersburg in about 2.5 hours, improving to 1.5 hours once the new Allegro train starts operation in December 2010.

Economy

The city's main employers are the City of Lappeenranta, UPM-Kymmene, South Karelia Central Hospital, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Paroc, Nordkalk, VR-Group, Fazer, The Armed Forces and Outotec.[3]

Sports

Lappeenranta has multiple sports teams playing in top levels of Finnish sports leagues. SaiPa is an ice hockey team playing in the highest level in Finland, SM-Liiga. LrNMKY is a basketball team playing in the highest level in Korisliiga and have won two championships in 2005 and 2006. NST plays floorball in the Salibandyliiga and Rajaritarit is an American Football team in the Vaahteraliiga. In women's sports Catz Lappeenranta plays basketball and Pesä Ysit plays Finnish baseball, both in the top leagues of the nation. Lappeenrannan Veiterä, or just Veiterä, plays in the highest bandy division and has been Finnish champion 4 times. The city hosted the first ever Bandy World Championships for women in 2004.

Finland-Norway at the Bandy World Championships for Women, 2004.

Notable people

Tourism

Autumn in Lappeenranta

Lappeenranta is known as a summer city, mostly due to its closeness to the Lake Saimaa. In addition, its inland location means that summers tend to be warmer and winters colder than along the coastal areas.

Lappeenranta, however, does have a healthy winter tourism industry. Various cabins around Lake Saimaa, as well as numerous snowmobile, skiing and sledding tracks draw a fair number of winter visitors.

The proximity of the Russian border is increasingly visible in the number of Russian tourists visiting the city. In fact, Lappeenranta is closer (211 km) to Saint Petersburg than Helsinki, the capital of Finland (221 km). The presence of Russians is noticeable by the many Russian registered cars on the streets and the use of signs in shops with Cyrillic letters.

Places and events

  • The old fortress, with a number of museums, cafés and the oldest Russian Orthodox church in Finland.
  • The harbour area, with cruises to Vyborg and the nearby Saimaa Canal.
  • The central market place, where you can enjoy the local specialities, such as meat pies known as "Atomi" (atom) or "Vety" (hydrogen).
  • The Night of The Fort, a two-day cultural festival held in early August.
  • The annual Lappeenranta National Singing Contest.
  • The "Huvisatama" (pleasure harbour) offers a wide variety of amusement during the summer.
  • There are two private cinema theatre in Lappeenranta: Kino-Aula and Nuijamies.

International relations

See also: List of twin towns and sister cities in Finland

Twin towns — Sister cities

Lappeenranta is twinned with:

References

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference population_count was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Ajaloolane: Lappeenranta kindluses asus peamiselt eestlaste vangilaager. Postimees, 12-15-2010. Template:Et icon
  3. ^ Statistics. (In Finnish) The city of Lappeenranta, 1-13-2011.
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