Oravais
Oravais (Swedish), Oravainen in Finnish , is a former municipality in the western Finnish region of Ostrobothnia . At the beginning of 2011 it merged with the municipality of Vörå-Maxmo to form the new municipality of Vörå .
Oravais is located around 50 km northeast of the city of Vaasa on the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia . The community had an area of 208.5 square kilometers (excluding the marine areas) and last 2,207 inhabitants. Of these, 79% spoke Swedish and 10% Finnish as their mother tongue. Officially, the community was bilingual with Swedish as the majority and Finnish as the minority language.
Oravais has long been one of the centers of the Finnish metal industry. A first ironworks was built on the banks of the Kimojoki River in 1703; it was run by descendants of Liège blacksmiths who emigrated to Sweden in the 17th century. For a long time, the roads in Oravais were paved with the slag from pig iron extraction. The old ironworks is now a museum. In the 19th century, a large sawmill was also built in the village, and the textile industry also settled.
On September 14, 1808, the bloodiest battle of the Russo-Swedish War was fought near Oravais . The Finnish-Swedish troops under Carl Johan Adlercreutz were subject to the Russian units under Nikolai Kamenski ; 740 Swedes and around 900 Russians died in the fighting. The battle was the decisive turning point of the war and ultimately led to Sweden's defeat and Russian rule in Finland. The Battle of Oravais is one of the highlights of Runeberg's verse epic Ensign Stahl . Today a memorial and the Ensign Ståhl Center Museum commemorate the battle.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Maanmittauslaitos (Finnish land surveying office): Suomen pinta-ala kunnittain 1. 1. 2010. (PDF; 199 kB)
- ↑ Väestörekisterikeskus (Finnish register of residents): Suomen asukasluku vuodenvaihteessa 2009 - 2010. ( Memento of the original from December 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Tilastokeskus (Finnish Statistics Office): Väestö iän (1-v.), Sukupuolen ja kielen mukaan alueittain 1990 - 2009 laaja alueluokitusryhmittely. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
