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Norrbotten, known in English as North Bothnia, is a Swedish province (landskap) in northernmost Sweden. It borders south to Västerbotten, west to Swedish Lapland, and east to Finland. [edit] History
During the Middle ages, the area was sparsely populated by Sami people, who lived on hunting, fishing and reindeer herding. From the Middle Ages and forward, the Swedish kings tried hard to colonise and Christianize the area. Settlers from Finland, the most important of which were known as Birkarls, controlled the trade and even the taxing on the area long into the 16th century. From the mid-16th century, the area was more firmly tied to Sweden. An important sign of Swedish control was the large Nederluleå stone church from 1492. Still today, Finnish and Sami minorities live in Norrbotten and they have kept their culture and language. Historically, Västerbotten was the denomination for northern Sweden, together with the Lappland areas. The Eastern Botten or Ostrobothnia was in the Finnish side. Cultural identification in Sweden is closely related to the historical provinces, and the people in Norrbotten live in this sense in Northern Västerbotten, or Norra Västerbotten. In order not to be confused with people from Southern Västerbotten, i.e. the coastal region of Västerbotten County, they started to identify themselves with the county rather than with the historical province. Norrbotten had gradually become synonymous with the area that was previously referred to as northern Västerbotten. It started to evolve as a separate province. During the 20th century it got all of the symbols (animals, flowers etc.) which are assigned to the other provinces of Sweden. But there was still some resistance to the idea of Norrbotten being a province. As recently as 1995, after decades of debate, Norrbotten was granted a coat of arms, thus at last being fully recognized as one of provinces of Sweden. The coat of arms symbolizes the four large rivers in Norrbotten that drain into the Gulf of Bothnia: Torne River, Kalix River, Lule River and Pite River. The summers can bring surprisingly warm temperatures for such northerly latitudes, and Norrbotten holds the all-time high temperature record for the entire Norrland at 37 °C (98 °F). [edit] Research Tips
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