Lauritsala () is a former Finnish

market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rural ...

in the

South Karelia South Karelia ( fi, Etelä-Karjala; sv, Södra Karelen) is a Regions of Finland, region of Finland. It borders the regions of Kymenlaakso, Southern Savonia, South Savo and North Karelia, as well as Russia (Republic of Karelia and Leningrad Obla ...

region. It was closed down on 1 January 1967 and was incorporated into

Lappeenranta Lappeenranta (; sv, Villmanstrand) is a city and municipality in the region of South Karelia, about from the Russian border and from the town of Vyborg (''Viipuri''). It is situated on the shore of the Lake Saimaa in southeastern Finland, and ...

. The present district of Lauritsala comprises only the center of the former town.

History

Lauritsala was originally one of the villages of the

Lappee Lappee is an old parish and a former municipality of Finland in the South Karelia region, originally in the Viipuri Province and after the Second World War, the Kymi Province. It was consolidated with Lappeenranta in 1967 together with Lauritsala ...

parish. It has existed at least since 1558, when it was mentioned as ''Lawritzala''. Its name is derived from the surname ''Lauritsainen'', which in turn is derived from the name of

Saint Lawrence Saint Lawrence or Laurence ( la, Laurentius, lit. "Laurel wreath, laurelled"; 31 December AD 225 – 10 August 258) was one of the seven deacons of the city of Rome under Pope Sixtus II who were martyred in the Persecution of Christians, perse ...

. Lauritsala became an independent municipality in 1932. The former Lauritsala market area had 12,965 inhabitants in 1966. It is home to

UPM-Kymmene UPM-Kymmene Oyj is a Finnish forest industry company. UPM-Kymmene was formed by the merger of Kymmene Corporation with Repola Oy and its subsidiary United Paper Mills Ltd in 1996. UPM consists of six business areas: UPM Fibres, UPM Energy, UPM ...

's Kaukas mills and part of the

Saimaa Canal The Saimaa Canal ( fi, Saimaan kanava; sv, Saima kanal; russian: Сайменский канал) is a transportation canal that connects lake Saimaa with the Gulf of Finland near Vyborg, Russia. The canal was built from 1845 to 1856 and opened ...

. The center of Lappeenranta is about four kilometres away. There are old detached houses and blocks of flats in the area, with new settlements. In 1960, Lauritsala's population density included Mustola (341 inhabitants, partly on the Lappee side) and Mälki (322 inhabitants). The Lappeenranta and Lauritsala population centres had grown together and are now called Lappeenranta centre, with 32,174 inhabitants in 1960. In addition, part of the Laihia settlement in Lappee municipality extended to Lauritsala.

Notable people

Seppo Ahokainen Seppo Johannes Ahokainen (born January 19, 1952) is a Finnish retired professional ice hockey player. who played in the SM-liiga for Ilves and Tappara as well for the Finland national team. He was inducted into the Finnish Hockey Hall of Fame ...

, Finnish professional ice hockey player *

Teuvo Kohonen Teuvo Kalevi Kohonen (11 July 1934 – 13 December 2021) was a prominent Finnish academic ( Dr. Eng.) and researcher. He was professor emeritus of the Academy of Finland.self-organizing map A self-organizing map (SOM) or self-organizing feature map (SOFM) is an unsupervised machine learning technique used to produce a low-dimensional (typically two-dimensional) representation of a higher dimensional data set while preserving the to ...

Arvi Lind Arvi Kullervo Lind (born December 21, 1940) is a retired Finnish television news presenter. He worked as the news anchor on Yleisradio TV1 from 1965 to 2003. Along with Kari Toivonen, he was one of the longest-serving employees of Yleisradio ne ...

, Finnish television news presenter *

Eino Valle Eino Valle (18 February 1932 – 21 June 1990) was a Finnish long-distance runner. He competed in the marathon at the 1964 Summer Olympics. References External links * 1932 births 1990 deaths Athletes (track and field) at the 1 ...

, Finnish long-distance runner

Places and events

Lauritsala Church Lauritsala Church ( fi, Lauritsalan kirkko) is an Evangelical Lutheran church in the Lauritsala district of Lappeenranta, Finland. The church was opened in December 1969. The modernist concrete design was created by architect and architect studen ...

* Lauritsala's library was described by L. R. McColvin (City Librarian at Westminster, London) as: "the most attractive, most beautiful small library I have ever seen in the world."

References

External links

Documenta Carelica Portal

Lauritsala township exhibition
Museum of South Karelia (in Finnish)
So just 35 years - that's how the legendary Lauritsala has changed
Yle News (in Finnish)
Lauritsala library
(in Finnish) Cities and towns in Finland Populated places established in 1937 History of Karelia {{Finland-geo-stub

History

Notable people

Places and events

References

Further reading

External links