Kimitoön
This article is about the municipality of Kimitoön. For the island of the same name, see Kimitoön (island).
Kimitoön (Swedish) or Kemiönsaari [ˈkemiønˌsɑːri] (Finnish) is a municipality in the Varsinais-Suomi region of southwestern Finland. It was formed at the beginning of 2009 by the merger of the municipalities of Kimito (Kemiö), Dragsfjärd and Västanfjärd.
The municipality of Kimitoön is located in the eastern part of the Archipelago Sea off the southwest coast of Finland and includes most of the island of Kimitoön and the offshore archipelago of Hitis (Hiittinen). With an area of 524 km², Kimitoön is the second largest island in the Finnish Baltic Sea waters after Fasta Åland, the main island of Åland, and is separated from the mainland only by narrow sounds. The area of the municipality is 698.11 km² (of which 11.00 km² are inland waters). Including the marine areas that extend to the border of Finnish territorial waters, the municipality has a total area of 2,801.25 km². Neighbouring municipalities of Kimitoön are Pargas to the west, Sauvo to the north and Salo to the east. The largest towns in Kimitoön are the church village of Kimito and Dalsbruk (Taalintehdas), the main town of the former municipality of Dragsfjärd.
The municipality of Kimitoön has about 7300 inhabitants, of which 71.4% are Finnish-Swedish. Officially, Kimitoön is bilingual with Swedish as the majority language and Finnish as the minority language.
In the church village of Kimito is the open-air museum Sagalunds museum and the church of Kimito, a medieval fieldstone church from the 15th century. Dragsfjärd Church is a wooden cruciform church from 1752-55, Västanfjärd Old Church was also built of wood in 1759-60, and the New Church was built of stone in 1910-12 in the National Romantic style. On the island of Hitis there is a wooden church built in 1685-86. The village of Dalsbruk grew up around an ironworks founded in 1686. A special feature of the village is that most of the houses are built of slagstone, a by-product of the smelting process. The oldest preserved buildings date back to the 18th century. The highest lighthouse in Scandinavia is located on the island of Bengtskär.
Culture
- Baltic Jazz Festival
- Kimito Music Festival
Sons and daughters
- Mikael Gustafsson (* 1966), Swedish left-wing politician
- Wilhelm Ramsay (1865-1928), Finnish geologist
