Haparanda Municipality
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:
| # | Locality | Population |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Haparanda | 4,778 |
| 2 | Marielund | 1,865 |
| 3 | Seskarö | 498 |
| 4 | Nikkala | 447 |
| 5 | Karungi | 232 |
The municipal seat in bold
Demographics
This is a demographic table based on Haparanda Municipality's electoral districts in the 2022 Swedish general election sourced from SVT's election platform, in turn taken from SCB official statistics.
Haparanda has a high degree of people of foreign background since records were kept in 2002, mainly a result of cross-border connections with Tornio and Finland. In total there were 6,198 Swedish citizens of voting age resident in the municipality. 47.7% voted for the left coalition and 51.3% for the right coalition. Indicators are in percentage points except population totals and income.
| Location | Residents | Citizen adults |
Left vote | Right vote | Employed | Swedish parents |
Foreign heritage |
Income SEK |
Degree |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| % | % | ||||||||
| Grankullen | 1,121 | 750 | 44.1 | 54.9 | 78 | 59 | 41 | 26,566 | 30 |
| Haparanda N | 2,365 | 1,459 | 46.0 | 52.3 | 67 | 40 | 60 | 19,798 | 24 |
| Haparanda S | 1,580 | 1,105 | 51.5 | 47.0 | 67 | 40 | 60 | 19,977 | 30 |
| Karungi | 913 | 605 | 41.9 | 57.4 | 74 | 66 | 34 | 20,761 | 22 |
| Marielund | 2,008 | 1,183 | 48.8 | 50.6 | 67 | 40 | 60 | 22,044 | 24 |
| Nikkala | 1,031 | 742 | 48.2 | 51.3 | 78 | 66 | 34 | 24,213 | 26 |
| Seskarö | 467 | 354 | 64.1 | 35.9 | 72 | 69 | 31 | 21,187 | 25 |
| Source: SVT | |||||||||
Twin towns – sister cities
Haparanda is twinned with:
Hammerfest, Norway
Kovdor, Russia
Širvintos, Lithuania
