The Arctic Circle region of northern Sweden is the home of the Saami people.
It is the biggest and one of the last places with an ancestral way of life based on the seasonal movement of livestock.
- UNESCO (Paris) 2005. Reindeer of the Laponia area.
Laponia Area (1996)
Sweden
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The Arctic Circle region of northern Sweden is the home of the Saami people. It is the biggest and one of the last places with an ancestral way of life based on the seasonal movement of livestock.
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Every summer, the Saami lead
their immense herds of reindeer towards the mountains through a natural
landscape hitherto preserved, but now threatened by the advent of motor
vehicles.
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Historic and on-going geological processes can be seen in the glacial moraines and changing water courses. The region has many extremely beautiful sceneries, with deep valleys and powerful rivers.
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The area is of outstanding universal value as it contains examples of ongoing geological, biological and ecological processes, a great variety of natural phenomena of exceptional beauty and significant biological diversity including a population of brown bear and alpine flora.
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The site has been occupied continuously by the Saami people since prehistoric times, and is one of the last and unquestionably largest and best preserved examples of an area of transhumance, involving summer grazing by large reindeer herds, a practice that was widespread at one time and which dates back to an early stage in human economic and social development.
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Link:
Other World Heritage Sites in Sweden (on this website). Please refer to the UNESCO-listing, Sweden section, for further information about the individual properties.
Revised 21 jul 2006 |
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