Ikaalinen

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Ikaalinen (Ikalis in Swedish) is a municipality of Finland.

It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Pirkanmaa region. The municipality has a population of 7,715 and covers an area of 843.7 km² of which 91.51 km² is water. The population density is 10.1 inhabitants per km².

The municipality is unilingually Finnish.

The Seitseminen national park is partly located in the municipality.

Ikaalinen is an old tourist attraction in Finland. Its spa tradition dates back to the last century and folk music, especially accordion music is one of its traditions. Its beautiful landscape has always fascinated visitors.

During the last decades Ikaalinen developed into a versatile service centre with good business, educational and recreational facilities. Today about 55 % of the population earns its living from the service sector and 15 % from agriculture, which has always provided an important source of income.

Sata-Häme Soi Accordion Festival, a superb festival, is a regular and highly diverse six-day event held every year shortly after midsummer. It provides an opportunity to enjoy the finest accordion music in the most beautiful surroundings. The individual performers and orchestras are always of the highest quality. Famous vocal artists are also featured in the programme. Rest assured that this event is a good cut above nearly all of its competitors in the world of accordion music.

S. Albert Kivinen, the associate professor of philosophy of the University of Helsinki, is the most famous living native of Ikaalinen, due to his tongue-in-the-cheek horror stories written in Lovecraftian style. He was also instrumental in introducing Lovecraft to Finnish readers in the eighties. His most famous fictional work, Keskiyön Mato Ikaalisissa ("The Midnight Worm in Ikaalinen"), is a Lovecraftian story set in his childhood surroundings in Ikaalinen.