The Lapland reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Lapland

Lapland, also called Sápmi, is the area traditionally inhabited by the Sami people. The area covers the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Russian Kola Peninsula.

Sápmi is the name in the Sami languages, while the name Lapland is the traditional English spelling of the Swedish and Norwegian Lappland. The name in Finnish is Lappi. The name traditionally used in Latin is Laponia. The choice of words for the people and language is becoming a matter of political correctness, but provinces and counties still carry the old ("lap") names.

With the fall of the Soviet Union and increasing internationalization, co-operation across borders is becoming more important and existing county and national borders less important. This is true both for the Sami aboriginal population and the non-Sami majority population.

Administrative divisions

• Finnmark - a county of Norway
• Lapland - a province of Finland
• Murmansk - an oblast of Russia
• Norrbotten - a county of Sweden

See also

• Laponia - a historical province of Sweden and Finland
• Barents Region
• Laestadian

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