Meänkieli in the context of "Haparanda Municipality"

Norrbotten County (Swedish: Norrbottens län, Meänkieli/Finnish: Norrbottenin lääni, Northern Sami: Norrbottena leatna) is the northernmost county or län of Sweden. It is also the largest county by land area, almost a quarter of Sweden's total area. It shares borders with Västerbotten County to the southwest, the Gulf of Bothnia to the southeast, the counties of Nordland and Troms in Norway to the northwest, and Lapland Province in Finland to the northeast.

The name "Norrbotten" is also used for a province of the same name. Norrbotten province covers only the eastern part of Norrbotten County – the inland mostly belongs to the Swedish Lapland province (Lappland).

Finnish (endonym: suomi [ˈsuo̯mi] or suomen kieli [ˈsuo̯meŋ ˈkie̯li]) is a Finnic language of the Uralic language family, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland, alongside Swedish. In Sweden, both Finnish and Meänkieli (which has significant mutual intelligibility with Finnish) are official minority languages. Kven, which like Meänkieli is mutually intelligible with Finnish, is spoken in the Norwegian counties of Troms and Finnmark by a minority of Finnish descent.

Finnish is typologically agglutinative and uses almost exclusively suffixal affixation. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals and verbs are inflected depending on their role in the sentence. Sentences are normally formed with subject–verb–object word order, although the extensive use of inflection allows them to be ordered differently. Word order variations are often reserved for differences in information structure. Finnish orthography uses a Latin-script alphabet derived from the Swedish alphabet, and is phonemic to a great extent. Vowel length and consonant length are distinguished, and there are a range of diphthongs, although vowel harmony limits which diphthongs are possible.

The Baltic Finnic peoples, often simply referred to as the Finnic peoples, are the peoples inhabiting the Baltic Sea region in Northern and Eastern Europe who speak Finnic languages. They include the Finns, Estonians (including Võros and Setos), Karelians (including Ludes and Livvi), Veps, Izhorians, Votes, and Livonians. In some cases the Kvens, Ingrians, Tornedalians and speakers of Meänkieli are considered separate from the Finns.

The bulk of the Finnic peoples (more than 98%) are ethnic Finns and Estonians, who reside in the two independent Finnic nation states—Finland and Estonia.

Haparanda (Swedish: [hapaˈrǎnːda]; Meänkieli and Finnish: Haaparanta, lit. 'aspen shore or bank') is a locality and the seat of Haparanda Municipality in Norrbotten County, Sweden. It is adjacent to Tornio, Finland. Haparanda has a population of 9,166 inhabitants (2024).

Haparanda is located near the Sweden-Finland border, at the northerly extreme of the Swedish coastline, as well as the easternmost point in Sweden, far removed from large cities. Its summers are very warm for a coastal location so far north, and winters are normally not extremely cold in spite of the relative proximity to the Arctic Circle.

Kven (kvääni; kainu; Finnish: kveeni; Norwegian: kvensk) is a Finnic language spoken in the northernmost parts of Norway by the Kven people. It is closely related to Meänkieli, spoken in Torne Valley in Sweden, and to the Peräpohjola dialects of Finnish. The status of Kven as a distinct language versus a dialect of Finnish has been debated. In 2005, Kven received the status of a minority language in Norway under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

There are about 1,500 to 10,000 known native speakers, most of whom are over the age of 60. Middle-aged speakers tend to have a passing knowledge of the language. They use it occasionally, but not frequently enough to keep it off the endangered list. People under the age of 30 rarely speak or know the language. However, children in the community of Børselv can learn Kven in their primary schools.

Norrbotten County (Swedish: Norrbottens län, Meänkieli/Finnish: Norrbottenin lääni, Northern Sami: Norrbottena leatna) is the northernmost county or län of Sweden. It is also the largest county by land area, almost a quarter of Sweden's total area. It shares borders with Västerbotten County to the southwest, the Gulf of Bothnia to the southeast, the counties of Nordland and Troms in Norway to the northwest, and Lapland Province in Finland to the northeast.

The name "Norrbotten" is also used for a province of the same name. Norrbotten province covers only the eastern part of Norrbotten County with the inland mostly belonging to the Swedish Lapland province (Lappland).