Tornio

Sister cities

• Valga City
• Devizes
• Ikast
• Vetlanda Municipality
• Szekszárd
• Kirovsk
• Hammerfest

History

The delta of the Torne River has been inhabited since the end of the last ice age, and there are currently (1995) 16 settlement sites known in the area, similar to those found in Vuollerim (). The Swedish part of the region is not far from the oldest permanent settlement site found in Scandinavia. A former hypothesis that this region was uninhabited and colonised from the Viking Age onward has now been abandoned. Until the 19th century, inhabitants of the surrounding countryside spoke Finnish, and Kemi Sámi, a language of the Eastern Sami group, while those of the town were mainly Swedish-speaking. The name 'Tornio' is an old Finnish word meaning "war spear": the city is named after the river. To Swedish it was borrowed as Torneå after Torne å, an alternative name of the river. The town received its charter from the King Gustavus Adolphus on 12 May 1621, and was officially founded on the island of Suensaari. At that time, it was the northernmost city in the world. The charter was granted in recognition of Tornio being the hub of all trade in Lapland throughout the 16th century. It was the largest merchant town in the North at the time, and for some years ranked as the richest town in Sweden. Despite the lively trade with Lapland and overseas, the population of the town remained stable for hundreds of years at little over 500. During the 18th century Tornio was visited by several expeditions from Central Europe which came to explore the Arctic. The most notable expedition (1736–1737) was led by a member of the Académie française, Pierre Louis Maupertuis, who came to take meridian arc measurements along the Torne Valley which would show that the globe is flattened towards the poles. The church spire at Tornio was one of the landmarks used by Maupertuis in his…

Most-observed species

• Great Tit

  Parus major Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  1,615
• Common Goldeneye

  Bucephala clangula (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,612
• Eurasian Magpie

  Pica pica (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,429
• Eurasian Blue Tit

  Cyanistes caeruleus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,238
• Common Chaffinch

  Fringilla coelebs Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  1,074
• Hooded Crow

  Corvus cornix Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  1,028
• Fieldfare

  Turdus pilaris Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  961
• Eurasian Bullfinch

  Pyrrhula pyrrhula (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  944

Most recent

• M 3.5 — 2018-06-27
  15 km SSW of Rolfs, Sweden