Imatra

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Imatra is a town and municipality in eastern Finland, founded in 1948 around three industrial settlements near the Finnish-Russian border. In the course of the last 50 years, this amorphous group of settlements has grown into a modern industrial town dominated by Lake Saimaa, the Vuoksi River and the border. It gained its municipal charter in 1971.

On the other side of the border, 7 kilometres away from the centre of Imatra, lies the town of Svetogorsk. St Petersburg is situated 210 km to the southeast, Finland's capital Helsinki is 230 km away and Lappeenranta, the nearest Finnish town to Imatra in Finland, is 37 km away. Imatra belongs to the administrative province of Southern Finland and the region of South Karelia.

Total surface area: 191.6 square kilometres (Land area 155.3 km², water area 36.3 km²)
Population: 29,738 (as of December 31, 2004)

The main employers:

Stora Enso Oyj
Municipality of Imatra
Ovako Bar Oy Ab
Border Guard

Number of jobs: 12,426 (October 2003; figures from the Imatra town homepage)
Number of municipal employees: 1868 (as at December 2004) (including permanent staff but excluding employees paid by the employment creation funds)

Imatra is the birthplace of National Hockey League players Jussi Markkanen and Petteri Nokelainen

The current mayor of Imatra is Pertti Lintunen.