Swedish Lapland

The Laponian area is a large mountainous wildlife area in the Arctic Circle region of northern Sweden – inside the Norrbotten County. It is the home of the Sami since prehistoric times who still maintains an ancestral way of life based on the seasonal movement of livestock. The total area of Swedish Lapland is about 9400 km², making it the world's largest unmodified nature area to be still cultured by natives. The best-known means of livelihood of Sami people is semi-nomadic reindeer herding (you may find the Sami flag and reindeer on the postcard showed below). 

Due to the universal values of understanding geological, biological and ecological processes and the importance to Sami culture, the Laponian Area was ranked as one of the few World Cultural and Natural Heritages by UNESCO in 1996. The two postcards showed below feature some typical views of this area - mountains, rivers, lakes, northern lights and reindeers. Many thanks to my sister Janet Lin, who lives in Luleå - the capital of Norrbotten County, for these nice postcards with beautiful stamps! Janet did send these postcards from Luleå however the postmarks read “Umeå” – the capital of Västerbotten County which is a neighbouring one in the south of Norrbotten. She said that maybe this is because Umeå has a large international mail center which handles ordinary mails collected from Norrbotten too.