Every design for Kiuruvesi

Where North Savo meets North Ostrobothnia, in the region's north-western corner, lies Kiuruvesi, with Iisalmi, Pielavesi and Vieremä among its neighbours. It is a wide rural municipality of lakes, bays and bog, its many villages spread out around a single town centre: Luupuvesi, Koivujärvi, Lapinsalo, Osmanki and plenty more. Several pieces of its landscape are protected as Natura sites, among them the bird lakes of Luupuvesi, the Toukkasuo-Huttusuo bog and the groves of Jynkänjärvi and Putousnotko.

What makes Kiuruvesi unusual is how firmly it belongs to the land. Farming has been its mainstay since the Middle Ages. For a long time this was Finland's biggest milk-producing parish, and it still raises more beef than any other. It calls itself the capital of organic Finland, and one of the country's few surviving strains of native landrace chicken came from its farms. The local engineering works, Runni, once built snowblowers for the region's long winters. Kiuruveden kotiseutumuseo and Rukajärvi-keskus look after the town's memory.

On the map, find the named bays along the shore, Hyvölänlahti and Kettulanlahti: small curves of water that only a local would think to point out.