Harjavalta () is a town and municipality in Finland. It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the

Satakunta Satakunta (in both Finnish and Swedish, ) is a region ( / ) of Finland, part of the former Western Finland Province. It borders the regions of Southwest Finland, Pirkanmaa, South Ostrobothnia and Ostrobothnia. The capital city of the region ...

region, southeast of Pori. The town has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is . Today people in the town are employed in the copper and nickel

smelting Smelting is a process of applying heat to ore, to extract a base metal. It is a form of extractive metallurgy. It is used to extract many metals from their ores, including silver, iron, copper, and other base metals. Smelting uses heat and a c ...

industries. Today's most used metal recovery method, the flash smelting method, was developed at Harjavalta and implemented in 1949. Originally part of

Outokumpu Outokumpu Oyj is a group of international companies headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, employing 10,600 employees in more than 30 countries. Outokumpu is the largest producer of stainless steel in Europe and the second largest producer in the ...

, a Finnish company, the copper business is now owned by

Boliden Boliden is a locality situated in Skellefteå Municipality, Västerbotten County, Sweden with 1,566 inhabitants in 2010. It lies 28,5 kilometers from Skellefteå City. This is where Boliden AB Boliden AB is a Swedish multinational metals, m ...

and the nickel business by Norilsk Nickel. Hiittenharju is a ridge in Harjavalta, known for its archaeology and cultural history. The banks of the ancient Litorina Sea lies on the fringes of the Hiittenharju ridge. In the Hiittenharju area

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

graves, called barrows, have been discovered, and there is also a historical route called Huovintie running through Hiittenharju. The river

Kokemäenjoki The Kokemäenjoki ("Kokemäki River", sv, Kumo älv) is a river in southwestern Finland. Geography The river originates at Lake Liekovesi in the Pirkanmaa region, and flows to the Gulf of Bothnia at Pori in the Satakunta region. Primary tributa ...

river runs through the town. The neighboring municipalities are Eura,

Kokemäki Kokemäki (; sv, Kumo) is a town and municipality in the Satakunta Region of Finland. The town has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is . Finland is constitutionally bi-lingual with a Swedis ...

Nakkila Nakkila () is a municipality of Finland. It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Satakunta region, southeast of Pori. The Kokemäki River flows along the center of Nakkila. The municipality has a population of () and ...

and

Ulvila Ulvila (; sv, Ulvsby) is a town and municipality of Finland. It is one of the six medieval cities of Finland, as well as the third oldest city in the country. Ulvila was granted charter as a town by King Albert of Sweden on 7 February 1365. How ...

. The municipality is unilingually Finnish.

History

Earliest signs of habitation on the area have been dated to 1200 BC. Various different writings of the name in documents of the 15th century at the Turku Cathedral are ''Harianwalta'', ''Hariawalta'', ''Hariaualdastha'', ''Harianwaltha'' and ''Harianwaltaby''. The name is supposed to originate from the speculative Proto Germanic name ', composed of the speculative words ''*harjaz'' ("army") and ''*waldaz'' ("authority"). It is believed that either a person named Harjawaldaz or a warrior band settled or lived in the area. The earliest known written occurrence of the name is from Tacitus on the first century, ''

Chariovalda Chariovalda (Proto-Germanic *''Hariwald'') was a Batavian chieftain who participated in the Roman retaliation campaign (from 14-16 AD) against a Germanic alliance in the aftermath of the disaster at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Chariovalda ...

''. Different adoptions of the same name are Harald, Hérault and Harold, but Harjavalta is closest to the reconstructed original. In 1670, the villages of Harjavalta formed their own chapel parish, but the official status of an independent congregation began to be sought about 200 years later. Harjavalta's application for its own pastor was granted in 1868, and the decision was implemented in 1878. The new independent parish had about 1,600 members. The great famine years in the 1860s doubled mortality in Finland, but on the scale of Finland as a whole, Harjavalta did little to avoid this ordeal. The act of 1865 on the municipal government led to the formation of the

municipal council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural council ...

and the municipal government also in Harjavalta in 1869. This is considered to be the year of birth of the municipality of Harjavalta. The first store in Harjavalta was founded in a church village in 1874. A second store soon opened in the village of Merstola. The most important sales products were salt, coffee and sugar, but the selections also included

fabric Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not t ...

wheat flour Wheat flour is a powder made from the grinding of wheat used for human consumption. Wheat varieties are called "soft" or "weak" if gluten content is low, and are called "hard" or "strong" if they have high gluten content. Hard flour, or ''bread ...

licorice Liquorice (British English) or licorice (American English) ( ; also ) is the common name of ''Glycyrrhiza glabra'', a flowering plant of the bean family Fabaceae, from the root of which a sweet, aromatic flavouring can be extracted. The liqu ...

and

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus ''Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the chie ...

. The first school building was acquired in 1885, when the municipality bought the Kreetala

farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used f ...

, the main building of which became Harjavalta's first folk school.

Politics

Results of the

2019 Finnish parliamentary election Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 14 April 2019. For the first time, no party received more than 20% of the vote. The Centre Party, which had been the largest party following the 2015 elections, dropped to fourth place, losing 18 sea ...

in Harjavalta: * Social Democratic Party 29.3% * Finns Party 19.6% * Left Alliance 17.1% * National Coalition Party 12.3% * Centre Party 12.2% *

Christian Democrats __NOTOC__ Christian democratic parties are political parties that seek to apply Christian principles to public policy. The underlying Christian democracy movement emerged in 19th-century Europe, largely under the influence of Catholic social tea ...

4.4% *

Green League The Green League (VIHR, fi, Vihreä liitto , sv, Gröna förbundet), shortened to the Greens ( fi, Vihreät, sv, De Gröna), is a green political party in Finland. Ideologically, the Green League is positioned on the centre-left of the pol ...

4.3%

Transport

Harjavalta is served by OnniBus.com route Helsinki—Pori.

Town twinning

Harjavalta is twinned with: *

Boksitogorsk Boksitogorsk (russian: Бокситого́рск) is a town and the administrative center of Boksitogorsky District in Leningrad Oblast, Russia, located on the banks of the Pyardomlya River in the basin of the Syas River, east of St. Pete ...

, Leningrad Oblast,

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eight ...

References

External links