Every design for Joutsa

Ever tried counting the lakes on a map of Joutsa? You would be at it a while: there are nearly two hundred, from Puula and Suontee to Jääsjärvi, which the municipality shares with Hartola, and the land between them is bog, beach and esker forest.

What many people carry from Joutsa is a summer memory of one of those shores, or of a walk through Leivonmäki National Park, where the marshes and ridge forests begin almost at the door. Then there is Joutsenlampi, the backwoods hotel that opened on the shore of Angesselkä in the late 1960s, and the local pride in recalling that the International Mathematical Olympiad of 1985 was held here, of all places. Joutsan sahti keeps a brewing tradition alive, and the old border between Häme and Savo once followed the municipality's eastern edge.

If Joutsan talomuseo, the ruins at Jousan ryvin rauniot or the lake road home through the south-east corner of Central Finland mean something to you, this map belongs to you. Wear it the next time someone asks where you are from.