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Kiruna Municipality is the northernmost municipality in Sweden, and at about 20,000 km2 is Sweden's geographically largest, being as large as the combined area of Sweden's three southernmost provinces Scania, Blekinge and Halland, or slightly smaller than the country of Slovenia. Finnish, Meänkieli and Sami have the official status of being minority languages in the municipality. During the 20th century the mining settlement Kiruna was built in the parish of Jukkasjärvi, at that time a rural municipality in very remote territory. A so called municipalsamhälle (which was a kind of borough established within a rural municipality to take care of some matters of urban character) was instituted in 1908. The settlement grew (it even had a tramway system) and it was decided to make it a city. On January 1, 1948 the whole parish of Jukkasjärvi was transformed into the City of Kiruna. As the vast wilderness around the town itself was included, Kiruna was at that time regarded as the largest city municipality in the world. Only a few more cities were instituted in Sweden, the last one in 1951. Instead the differences between the three types of municipalities were diminished and finally abolished all together. In 1971 Kiruna, as all others, became a unitary municipality and at the same time merged with Karesuando. |