Country Sweden Seat Haparanda ISO 3166 code SE Province Norrbotten | County Norrbotten County Time zone CET (UTC+1) Municipal code 2583 Team Asplöven HC | |
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Haparanda Municipality (Swedish: Haparanda kommun), (Finnish: Haaparannan kunta) is a municipality in Norrbotten County in northern Sweden. Its seat is located in Haparanda (Finnish: Haaparanta).
Contents
Map of Haparanda, Sweden
In 1967 the "City of Haparanda" was merged with the rural municipalities Karl Gustav and Nedertorneå. Since 1971 Haparanda, like all other municipalities of Sweden, is a municipality of unitary type. However, it prefers to use the title stad ("city") for the whole territory, including the non-urban parts.
Geography
In Sweden, Haparanda Municipality borders Övertorneå Municipality to the north and Kalix Municipality to the west.
Haparanda Municipality is located on the western side of where the Torne River discharges into the Bay of Bothnia. On the other side of the river lies the Finnish town Tornio (Swedish: Torneå). Haparanda and Tornio jointly call themselves "EuroCity".
Although Haparanda has a boat harbor, it is not accessible 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.
The municipality includes the Haparanda archipelago, with 652 islands in the bay of Bothnia, part of the larger Norrbotten archipelago. The Haparanda Archipelago National Park lies within the Haparanda group of islands. It includes the larger islands of Sandskär and Seskar Furö, and some smaller islands and skerries. Some of the other islands in the Haparanda archipelago include Hanhinkari, Kataja, Seskarö, Skomakaren, Stora Hamnskär, Stora Hepokari and Torne-Furö.
Localities
There are five localities (or urban areas) in Haparanda Municipality:
The municipal seat in bold
Politics and government
Distribution of the 35 seats in the municipal council after the 2010 election:
Results of the Swedish general election, 2010 in Haparanda:
Twin towns — Sister cities
Haparanda Municipality has four sister cities: