Every design for Kronoby

Kronoby lies in Ostrobothnia on Finland's west coast, a little inland from the Gulf of Bothnia, with Kokkola, Pedersöre and Larsmo among its neighbours and the dammed freshwater basin of Luodonjärvi at its edge. Dozens of lakes and open mires fill the country around its villages.

The parish was born by royal proclamation. King Charles IX founded it in the year of his coronation, and its name has recalled that crowning ever since; the day before, he had appointed Mårten Jacobi from Kokkola as its first vicar. Kronoby church was consecrated in the early nineteenth century, yet its bell tower is older still. The modern municipality joined Kronoby with Teerijärvi and Alaveteli, and its coat of arms combines all three: a ploughshare, a clover cross and the crown. Long a Swedish-only municipality, it later became bilingual, and three in four residents still speak Swedish.

For anyone who grew up here, the map is village names said in two languages, Nedervetil and Terjärv, Påras and Småbönders, the bird bay at Laajalahti, the Hjältegravar where the war dead rest, and the planes of Kokkola-Pietarsaari Airport coming down over the fields.