Topic summary
Kvarken Archipelago
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Kvarken.
Kvarken Archipelago
On the Finnish side of Kvarken, there is a large archipelago, the Kvarken Archipelago, which includes the large islands Replot, Björkö and over 5,600 smaller islands. Most of it belongs to the municipality of Korsholm. Most of the small islands are inhabited. The archipelago is smaller on the Swedish side of the region, and the islands, part of Umeå Municipality, have much steeper shores. The Kvarken region was historically important also, because mail was delivered across Kvarken when the sea was completely frozen from the Swedish to the Finnish coast. This mail route was used frequently during the period when Finland was a part of Sweden.