Every design for Pieksämäki

Pieksämäki sits in the north-western corner of South Savo, north of Mikkeli and east of Jyväskylä, on high moraine ridges with lakes between them. People have lived on these ridges for centuries, and the wider area has been settled without a break for thousands of years.

What makes the town unique is the railway. The old parish centre lay up on the ridge at Tienristi, but once the Savo line arrived the station drew everything towards it, and when further lines opened to Savonlinna and Jyväskylä the town became one of the key junctions in Finland's network. Savon radan museo keeps that story on display. The ground around the station was so boggy that nearby Pieksänjärvi had to be lowered before building could go ahead. When the market town was renamed Pieksämä, residents simply carried on saying Pieksämäki, the railways refused to change the station sign, and the old name won. Today a campus of Diaconia University of Applied Sciences keeps students in town.

Grow up here and the map reads like a timetable: tracks fanning out from the middle, Asemanlahden puisto close by, and every way home ending at the junction.