Paltaniemi is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

on the shores of Lake Oulujärvi, about north of the

Kajaani Kajaani (; sv, Kajana) is the most populous town and the capital of the Kainuu Region of Finland. It is located southeast of Lake Oulu (Oulujärvi), which drains into the Gulf of Bothnia through the Oulu River (Oulujoki). As of , it had a pop ...

's town center in

Kainuu Kainuu ( sv, Kajanaland) is one of the 19 regions of Finland (''maakunta'' / ''landskap''). Kainuu borders the regions of North Ostrobothnia, North Savo and North Karelia. In the east, it also borders Russia (Republic of Karelia). Culturally Kai ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

. It has a population of 291 inhabitants (in December 2020). The

Kajaani Airport Kajaani Airport is an airport in Paltaniemi, Kajaani, Finland, approximately northwest of Kajaani city centre. History Construction of the airport began in 1939 with the runway being completed in the autumn. However, because of the outbreak of ...

is located in the eastern side of the village. From the 17th century until the end of the 19th century, Paltaniemi was the spiritual center of Kainuu, where the most important priests and officials of the parish lived. Paltaniemi's current wooden church, completed in 1726, is the village's third; the first church was destroyed in an

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...

in 1626 and the second church was burned by the

Russians , native_name_lang = ru , image = , caption = , population = , popplace = 118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 ''Winkler Prins'' estimate) , region1 = , pop1 ...

during the Great Wrath in 1716. Paltaniemi belonged to

Paltamo Paltamo ( sv, Paltamo, also ) is a municipality of Finland. It is part of the Kainuu region. The municipality has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is . There are two built-up areas in the municip ...

municipality until 1954, before the village was incorporated into Kajaanin maalaiskunta. Paltaniemi is especially known as the birthplace of the Finnish poet

Eino Leino Eino Leino (born Armas Einar Leopold Lönnbohm; 6 July 1878 – 10 January 1926) was a Finnish poet and journalist who is considered one of the pioneers of Finnish poetry and a national poet of Finland. His poems combine modern and Finnish fol ...

, and the Eino Leino House

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

is located on the site of his former birthplace.

Elias Lönnrot Elias Lönnrot (; 9 April 1802 – 19 March 1884) was a Finnish physician, philologist and collector of traditional Finnish oral poetry. He is best known for creating the Finnish national epic, ''Kalevala'', (1835, enlarged 1849), from short b ...

, known as the compiler of the Finnish national epic ''

Kalevala The ''Kalevala'' ( fi, Kalevala, ) is a 19th-century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology, telling an epic story about the Creation of the Earth, describing the controversies and r ...

'', also lived in the village while working as a doctor in Kajaani. The German zoologist , who also worked as a

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

spy, maintained a

zoological Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and dis ...

station in Paltaniemi between 1928 and 1939.

References

External links

Paltaniemi's location
at Fonecta Kajaani Villages in Finland {{OuluProvince-geo-stub