Rovaniemi is situated in the north of Finland on the Arctic Circle. Rovaniemi has it's own airport, which is 8 km north from the centre of Rovaniemi. The airport welcomes about fifty flights a week mainly from Helsinki. Rovaniemi is situated about 850 km north from Helsinki, and the flight time from Helsinki is about one hour. Rovaniemi gets every year about one hundred and fifty charter flights full of Christmas visitors from Europe, mainly from England. The population of the Rovaniemi Region is about 57 000 which is nearly one-third of the entire population of Lapland.

Leading industry fields of Rovaniemi

• Tourism
• Information Communication Technology (e.g. the mobile media technology)
• Cold and winter testing (e.g. cars, snowmobiles)
• Wood production
• Design (Industrial design etc.)

Main High Education institutes

• The University of Lapland (Faculty of Education, law, art and design and social sciences)
• Rovaniemi Polytechnic
• Rovaniemi College

The distinctions of Rovaniemi region

The region of Rovaniemi is Lapland's centre for commerce, education, communications and culture. Rovaniemi is also the capital of Lapland and it has long been the Lappish centre of trade and administration. Rovaniemi is well known as the "Home of Santa Claus" all over the world. International media is also very interested in Santa Claus and the Arctic Circle. There are dozens of media groups, both TV and magazine, visiting the area especially Christmas time. The media groups come from for example USA, Japan, Korea, Italy and South-America.

The future of Rovaniemi

In Rovaniemi there is a technology centre called The Aurora Borealis Technology Centre. The main objective of the Aurora Borealis Technology Centre is to develop the Rovaniemi region into an attractive investment area and dynamic business environment for high technology companies. The centre consists of three parts: Santa's Technology Park, Campus Borealis and Infopolis.

Special fields of the 3 parts of the Aurora Borealis

Santa's Technology Park

• Experience industry
• Content production
• Mobile media technology

Campus Borealis

• Product development
• Programme producing and designing
• Product / service testing

Infopolis

• Product development and programming for the field of distance healthcare