Haparanda Municipality

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This page deals with both Haparanda Municipality and the urban area (tätort) Haparanda

**Haparanda Municipality (*Kommun*)**
Haparanda in northern Sweden Map outlining municipalities of Sweden	Coat of arms
	Municipal facts
	Seat	Haparanda
	65° 50′ N 24° 8′ E
	County	Norrbotten County
	Province	Lappland
	Area Rank	927 km² 114th of 290
	Population Rank (2005)	10,208 213th of 290
	Density	11/km²

Haparanda Municipality is a Swedish municipality in Norrbotten County, in northern Sweden. Its seat is in the town Haparanda (Finnish: Haaparanta) with 4,700 inhabitants.

1 Geography
2 History
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Geography

In Sweden, Haparanda borders the municipalities of Övertorneå to the north and Kalix to the west.

Haparanda is located on the western side of where the Torne River discharges into the Gulf of Bothnia. On the other side of the river lies the Finnish town Tornio (Torneå in Swedish). Haparanda and Tornio have a treaty of twin towering, and call themselves EuroCity.

Although Haparanda has a boat harbour, it is not accesible for larger vessels and is not, as often thought, the Baltic Sea's northernmost port, that honor most probably belonging to Töre further west on the Swedish coast.

[edit] History

Railway station

When Sweden lost Finland in 1809, the borders were drawn along the rivers of Tornio and Muonio, thus separating Tornio and Haparanda between a national border. The relationships between the neighbouring towns have however always been friendly. A large portion of Haparanda's population speak both Swedish and Finnish.

Haparanda was made a city of merchancy (köping) in 1821, and received its charted in 1842.

An IKEA department store has been opened in the town on November 15, 2006 being the northernmost IKEA store in the world.