Pelkosenniemi

Pelkosenniemi (Inari Sami: Pelkosnjargâ) is a municipality of Finland. It is located in the province of Lapland. The municipality has a population of 932 (31 December 2025), which make it the smallest municipality in Lapland in terms of population. It covers an area of 1,881.58 square kilometres (726.48 sq mi) of which 45.4 km2 (17.5 sq mi) is water. The population density is 0.51 inhabitants per square kilometre (1.3/sq mi). Neighbour municipalities are Kemijärvi, Rovaniemi, Salla, Savukoski and Sodankylä. The municipality is unilingually Finnish and in 2000 was the last remaining municipality in Finland to have its entire population consist of native speakers of Finnish. As of 2010 there were two native speakers of other languages in Pelkosenniemi. Pelkosenniemi hosts a popular mosquito swatting competition.