Every design for Kangasniemi

Down at Meijerinlahti on a July evening, boats push off into the lake while the cottage crowd carries the week's shopping to the car. Summer guests double the population of Kangasniemi, and it is easy to see why: more than a thousand kilometres of shoreline wind through the municipality, and almost every road ends at water.

Kangasniemi lies on the main road between Jyväskylä and Mikkeli in South Savo, on the old borderlands of Häme and Savo. Its largest lakes, Puula and Kyyvesi, shape every route and every view, and the forest that covers most of the rest feeds local firms making wooden stairs, doors and cabinet fronts. Karhuvuori and Hunninginmäki give a view over it all, the Kangasniemen museo keeps the parish story, and the statue known as Sankaripatsas "Kuoleva soturi" stands for the men the village lost.

The place once won a television vote as the most beautiful municipality in Finland. On an August evening, with the sun low over Puula and the golf course quiet, nobody here would argue.