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Arjeplog Municipality

Arjeplog Municipality
Arjeplogs kommun
Municipality
Coat of arms of Arjeplog Municipality
Coat of arms
Arjeplog Municipality in Norrbotten County.png
Country Sweden
County Norrbotten County
Seat Arjeplog
Area
 • Total 14,494.09 km2 (5,596.20 sq mi)
 • Land 12,556.77 km2 (4,848.20 sq mi)
 • Water 1,937.32 km2 (748.00 sq mi)
  Area as of January 1, 2014.
Population (December 31, 2016)
 • Total 2,876
 • Density 0.20/km2 (0.51/sq mi)
Time zone CET (UTC+1)
 • Summer (DST) CEST (UTC+2)
ISO 3166 code SE
Province Lapland
Municipal code 2506
Website www.arjeplog.se

Arjeplog Municipality (Swedish: Arjeplogs kommun, Northern Sami: Arjepluovvi gielda) is a municipality in Norrbotten County in northern Sweden. Its seat is located in Arjeplog.

The area, which now is Arjeplog Municipality, used to be a single parish (Swedish: socken), which was made into a municipality when the first Swedish local government acts were implemented in 1863. It has not been amalgamated with any other entity.

People lived in the area of today's municipality as early as 10,000 years ago, following the end of the last ice age. For a long time it was only populated by a fishing and hunting people, the Sami people, who have their own language and breed reindeer in northern Sweden, and today have special rights as a Swedish minority group.

The population in today's municipality was only a few hundred people in the 17th and 18th century, most of them Sami, and the rest of Sweden did not know much of them. Not until 1640 did Queen Christina of Sweden order a church to be built in order to Christianize the Sami people in Arjeplog. The church was inaugurated in 1642. At first the deceased were buried under the earthen floor in the church, but eventually the stench became unbearable and the procedure had to end.

The interest in Arjeplog had been sparked when silver was found in the area in the 1620s, and a mining industry was established there 1635-1659. It has been estimated that the amount of silver mined was 36 kilograms per year.


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