Haparanda Archipelago National Park ( sv, Haparanda skärgårds nationalpark) is a

national park A national park is a natural park in use for conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual ...

Haparanda Municipality Haparanda Municipality (), () is a municipality in Norrbotten County in northern Sweden. Its seat is located in Haparanda (). In 1967 the "City of Haparanda" was merged with the rural municipalities Karl Gustav and Nedertorneå. Since 1971 Hapara ...

Norrbotten County Norrbotten County ( sv, Norrbottens län; se, Norrbottena leatna, fi, Norrbottenin lääni) 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 border ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

. The park covers part of the

Haparanda archipelago The Haparanda archipelago ( sv, Haparanda skärgård) is a group of 792 Swedish islands in the north part of the Bay of Bothnia. The islands are used for recreation in the summer months. They are icebound during the winter. Location The north of ...

in the northeast of the

Bothnian Bay The Bothnian Bay or Bay of Bothnia (; ) is the northernmost part of the Gulf of Bothnia, which is in turn the northern part of the Baltic Sea. The land holding the bay is still rising after the weight of ice-age glaciers has been removed, and w ...

near the border with Finland. There are two relatively large islands,

Sandskär Sandskär is an island in the northeast of the Swedish sector of the Bay of Bothnia. Once used as a base for fishing and sealing, it is now part of a national park. Location Sandskär is the largest island in the Haparanda Archipelago National P ...

and Seskar Furö, and several smaller islands and reefs. The park is to the west of the Finnish Perämeri National Park. All of the islands in the Haparanda archipelago have emerged in the last 1,500 years or so, as the bed of the bay has risen due to

post-glacial rebound Post-glacial rebound (also called isostatic rebound or crustal rebound) is the rise of land masses after the removal of the huge weight of ice sheets during the last glacial period, which had caused isostatic depression. Post-glacial rebound a ...

following the last ice age. The land continues to rise at about per year, so the islands are steadily expanding. The water surrounding the islands is shallow, making it difficult to land. The islands are typified by large dunes.

References

External links

Sweden's National Parks: Haparanda Skärgård National Park
from the

Swedish Environmental Protection Agency The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency ( sv, Naturvårdsverket) is a government agency in Sweden responsible for proposing and implementing environmental policies. It was founded in 1967 and reports to the Swedish Ministry of the Environment ...

National parks of Sweden Geography of Norrbotten County Protected areas established in 1995 1995 establishments in Sweden Tourist attractions in Norrbotten County {{Norrbotten-geo-stub