Alajoki is an agricultural plain along the

Kyrönjoki Kyrönjoki () is a river of Finland. It is located in Southern Ostrobothnia region and flows into the Gulf of Bothnia. See also * List of rivers of Finland This is a list of rivers of Finland. Listing begins with rivers flowing into the Baltic ...

river in the municipalities of

Ilmajoki Ilmajoki (; sv, Ilmola) is a municipality of Finland. Ilmajoki is a town and municipality situated in Finland's South Ostrobothnia region, founded in 1865. Ilmajoki has a population of 12,165 (28. February 2017)and covers an area of 579.79 ...

and

Seinäjoki Seinäjoki (; "Wall River"; la, Wegelia, formerly sv, Östermyra) is a city located in South Ostrobothnia, Finland; east of Vaasa, north of Tampere, west of Jyväskylä and southwest of Oulu. Seinäjoki originated around the Östermyra bru ...

in the province of Ostrobothnia in western Finland. It consists of old marshes which were dried out in the early 1800s and then transformed into arable land through

slash-and-burn Slash-and-burn agriculture is a farming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area. The downed vegeta ...

farming and by spreading

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

on the burned

peat Peat (), also known as turf (), is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem covers and is the most efficien ...

. In the 20th century, the slowly sinking soil of Alajoki was notorious for its spring floods which are now largely prevented by various

flood control Flood control methods are used to reduce or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters."Flood Control", MSN Encarta, 2008 (see below: Further reading). Flood relief methods are used to reduce the effects of flood waters or high water level ...

methods along the Kyrönjoki river The fields are best suited for growing

hay Hay is grass, legumes, or other herbaceous plants that have been cut and dried to be stored for use as animal fodder, either for large grazing animals raised as livestock, such as cattle, horses, goats, and sheep, or for smaller domesticated ...

and other fodder, which has promoted livestock care in the Ilmajoki area. In 1995, the

Finnish National Board of Antiquities The Finnish Heritage Agency ( fi, Museovirasto, sv, Museiverket), previously known in English as the National Board of Antiquities, preserves Finland's material cultural heritage: collects, studies and distributes knowledge of it. The agency is ...

listed Alajoki as one of Finland's nationally valuable landscapes. The Alajoki plain is up to five kilometers wide and covers approximately 8,000 hectares. In the southwest it consists of the villages Röyskölä, Fossila, Nikkola and Pirilä north of Ilmajoki's center. In the western and northern part of Alajoki, the bordering villages include Harjunmäki, Könni, Munakka, Katila, and Niemistö. The southern border of the Alajoki area is formed by the railway and road 67, both running from Seinäjoki to

Kaskinen Kaskinen (; sv, Kaskö) is a town, municipality and island of Finland. It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Ostrobothnia region. The population of Kaskinen is () and the municipality covers an area of (excluding ...

on the Finnish west coast. The eastern part of Alajoki is located on the north side of Seinäjoki city center where the river Seinäjoki meets the Kyrönjoki river.Etelä-Pohjanmaa. Valtakunnallisesti arvokkaat maisema-alueet (MAPIO-työryhmän ehdotus).
Ministry of the Environment (Finland), 2015. PDF. Kuoppala, Annukka, et al.
Maaseudun kulttuurimaisemat ja maisemanähtävyydet. Ehdotukset Pohjanmaan, Etelä- ja Keski-Pohjanmaan valtakunnallisesti arvokkaiksi maisema-alueiksi 2013
ELY-keskus, Finland. .

Barns and "sauna" huts

Alajoki used to be famous for hundreds of simple barn buildings for hay storage scattered on the plain, now mostly gone. Another typical building type for the area were the "Alajoki saunas", small huts along the Kyronjoki river where field workers and cow milkers would stay and socialize during the busy summer months. Despite their name, most huts did not in fact include a

sauna A sauna (, ), or sudatory, is a small room or building designed as a place to experience dry or wet heat sessions, or an establishment with one or more of these facilities. The steam and high heat make the bathers perspire. A thermometer in a ...

stove. The name may derive from the fact that many of the log-frame huts were previously used as sauna buildings at farms and then disassembled, drawn by horses to the riverside and put together again for accommodation.Mäntysaari, Maaria
Alajoen jokisaunat ja luhtaladot. Rakennetun ympäristön säilyttäminen ja ohjeet lisärakentamiselle Ilmajoen-Seinäjoen Alajoella.
Länsi-Suomen ympäristökeskus, 1999. The need for such temporary accommodation became obsolete by the 1960s when roads had improved and motorised vehicles were used for daily trips to the Alajoki farmlands. Only about a dozen of the huts have survived, most of them in a river bend called Laivanpäänmukka.Välimäki, Valtteri
Jokisaunat tarjosivat töitä, maalaisromantiikkaa ja kuumottavia tilanteita
Yle Uutiset, Finnish Broadcasting Corporation YLE.

References

{{coord, 62.79988, 22.67006, display=title Geography of South Ostrobothnia