Welcome to Sodankylä!
Sodankylä (Northern Sámi: Soađegilli) is a municipality and a town of the same name in Finnish Lapland. Internationally it is perhaps best known for its highly renowned Midnight Sun Film Festival. It is the second largest municipality in Finland with a land area nearly half the size of Belgium.
The municipality is bilingual both Finnish and Northern Sámi being an official languages. The northern part of the area belongs to the Sámi native region.
1 Visit Sodankylä, Jäämerentie 3, FI-99601 Sodankylä, ☏ +358 40 746 9776, info@sodankyla.fi. (updated Sep 2020)
Visit Sompio, info@visitsompio.fi. Tourist info is dedicated to the northernmost villages in Sodankylä and their surrounding wilderness.
Sodankylä (Inari Sami: Suáđigil, Skolt Sami: Suäʹđjel, Latin: Bellonia or Polemopolis) is a municipality of Finland. It is located in the region of Lapland and lies at the northern end of Highway 5 (E63) and along Highway 4 (E75). The Kitinen River flows near the center of Sodankylä. Its neighbouring municipalities are Inari, Kemijärvi, Kittilä, Pelkosenniemi, Rovaniemi, and Savukoski. The municipality has two official languages: Finnish and Northern Sami.
The municipality has a population of 8,254, (31 March 2021) which makes it the fourth largest municipality in Lapland after Rovaniemi, Tornio, and Kemi, and at the same time the largest municipality in population that does not use the title of city or town. It covers an area of 12,415.50 square kilometers (4,793.65 sq mi) of which 718.65 km2 (277.47 sq mi) is water, making it the second largest municipality in Finland in terms of area, right after its neighboring municipality of Inari. The population density is 0.71 inhabitants per square kilometre (1.8/sq mi).
Sodankylä has an airfield. Also, one of EISCAT's scientific radar receiver stations is located outside Sodankylä, at the site of the Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory. The urban area around the observatory is known as "Tähtelä", which translates as "Place of Stars", although the observatory does not observe stars. The Jaeger Brigade of the Finnish Army is also located in Sodankylä. Although the name "Sodankylä" and (also "Soađegilli") directly translate to "Village of War", the etymology of the name is from the surname Sova rather than the word "war".Since 1986, Sodankylä has been home to the Midnight Sun Film Festival (Sodankylän elokuvajuhlat).