Vårdö is an island
municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality' ...
of
Ã…land, an autonomous territory of
Finland
Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...
.
The municipality has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water.
The
population density
Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...
is of land.
The municipality is unilingually
Swedish.
Håkan Skogsjö has documented the permanently residing population of Vårdö from the 17th century to the present, covering the history of the municipality as a whole, its individual hamlets, down to each original
farmstead and the families who lived there.
Two notable Finnish authors,
Sally Salminen and
Anni Blomqvist, were born in Vårdö. Blomqvist lived her whole life on the Vårdö island of Simskäla.
The word "vårdö" means "the guardian island". On the highest mountain of Vårdö people used to light bonfires to warn the other islands of danger.
The old post route from Stockholm to Turku went through Vårdö, by road from Båthusviken to Hullvik on the main island, otherwise by water. The local citizens took care of the mail transport in any type of weather. The dangerous mail transport lasted for over 300 years (1638–1910). Many people drowned on these journeys and in the memory of them the municipality of Vårdö has erected a memorial on the seashore of Hullvik. Today the post route road is marked with milestones.
References
External links
Municipality of Vårdö– Official website
Municipalities of Ã…land
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