Every design for Tyrnävä

Every autumn the church village of Tyrnävä holds its traditional potato market, and nothing tells you more about the place. Potatoes are the municipality's most important product, and its farms grow so much seed potato that the region counts as one of only four high-quality seed potato areas in the European Union. The rest of the year life runs at the pace of the fields, with the municipality's basic services gathered in the church village.

Tyrnävä lies south of Oulu on the broad farming plain it shares with Liminka, where the Tyrnävänjoki crosses the open fields. The village grew up around Tyrnävän church as a farming community and has spread east and west along the river. Tyrnävän kotiseutumuseo, Tyrnävän esinemuseo and Kotiseututalo look after its past, and Hiihtäjäpatsas, the skier statue, nods to the long winters on the plain.

The picture worth keeping is a wide one: flat fields running to the horizon, the river curving through them, and the church at the centre of it all.