Virrat
Town in southwest Finland
Virrat (Finnish: [ˈʋirːɑt]; Swedish: Virdois) is a town and municipality of Finland. Part of the Pirkanmaa region, it is located 104 kilometres (65 mi) north of Tampere and 113 kilometres (70 mi) west of Jyväskylä. Virrat is 285 kilometres (177 mi) from Helsinki. The town has a population of 6,126 (31 December 2025) and covers an area of 1,299.07 square kilometres (501.57 sq mi) of which 136.73 km2 (52.79 sq mi) is water. The population density is 5.27 inhabitants per square kilometre (13.6/sq mi). The municipality is unilingually Finnish.
The town grew rapidly in the mid-20th century, and by 1950 the population reached more than 12,000. Virrat acquired town status in 1977, although it had received the right to hold markets three years earlier, in 1974. More recently the population level has been adversely impacted by the drift of employment opportunities and people to the larger towns. Apart from the town of Virrat itself, the administratively defined municipality is largely rural, and includes the villages of Äijänneva, Härkönen Jäähdyspohja, Killinkoski, Koro, Kotala, Kurjenkylä, Liedenpohja, Ohtola, Vaskuu, and Vaskivesi.
Major lakes in the area are Lake Toisvesi, beside which the town of Virrat is located, and Lake Tarjanne at the border of the municipalities of Virrat, Mänttä-Vilppula, and Ruovesi.
Virrat crater on Mars is named after it.
01Climate
Virrat has a subarctic climate (Dfc). Diurnal air temperature variation is higher than in other parts of Pirkanmaa.
02Notable people
- Seppo Hovinen (born 1951), a Finnish javelin thrower
- I. K. Inha (1865-1930), a Finnish photographer, author, translator, and journalist
- Antti Lieroinen (died 1643), a famous Finnish cunning man and death-sentenced for witchcraft
- Vesa Rantanen (born 1975), a Finnish pole vaulter
- Tom Sukanen (1873-1943), a Finnish-born Canadian sailor and farmer
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Virrat”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Virrat, Virtaintie - Leivontie C IMG 2722.JPG by Anneli Salo, CC BY-SA 3.0
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