Jämsä is a Finnish city located in the southern part of the
province of Central Finland on the western shore of Lake Päijänne,
Finland's second largest lake. The city is home to 20,120 people (30
June 2020) and covers an area of 1,823.91 km², of which 252.54 km²
are water bodies (1 January 2020). The population density is 12.8
inhabitants / km².
Jämsä is the only medieval parish in its
province. The municipality of Jämsä was founded in 1866, it acquired
commercial rights in 1969, and it became a city in 1977. The
neighboring municipalities of Jämsä are Juupajoki, Jyväskylä,
Keuruu, Kuhmoinen, Luhanka, Mänttä-Vilppula, Orivesi and Petäjävesi.
The municipality of Kuorevesi was annexed to Jämsä in 2001. From
the beginning of 2007, the eastern parts of Längelmäki, which
belongs to the province of Pirkanmaa, were connected to Jämsä and
the western parts to the city of Orivesi. About 2/3 of Längelmäki's
residents lived in the area connected to Jämsä. The association had
no effect on the number of MPs elected from the Pirkanmaa and
Central Finland constituencies in the 2007 parliamentary elections.
The municipal associations continued in 2009, when Jämsä and
Jämsänkoski merged. At the beginning of 1969, the municipality of
Koskenpää was connected to Jämsänkoski. The new city was named Jämsä
and the coat of arms was Jämsänkoski.
After World War II,
settlers from Valkjärvi and Kivennava were stationed in Jämsä.
Jämsä's dialectal name is Jämpsä.
The origin of Jämsä propri is not entirely certain. Janne Saarikivi has suggested that the name Jämsä is related to a proverb that has evolved from the Northern Sámi verb jápmit (die). The present-day Sámi languages have several place names derived from the appellative jámeš (deceased). Max Wassmer once suggested that the name Jämsä is related to the shape and flow pattern of the Jämsä River. According to him, the river got its name before the permanent residents of the Jämsä region from the way the river flow consumes the shores. The name may also be based on an ancient verb meaning eating, biting, or caving, from which a appellative for spinning has since been derived. In dialects, this word is Jämsä, jämpsä or jämäs (a trough-bladed and branched trough intended for leveling the inner surface of wooden containers). There is a verb to crumble in the grass (cleans the inside of bundle dishes with crumbs).
In the present-day Jämsä region, the Ice Age ended about ten thousand
years before the beginning of the Common Era. At that time, the edge of
the ice retreated about a kilometer in eight years. The Ice Age left
behind fault valleys, gravel ridges and clay deposits. Lake Päijänne was
originally a bay; it became an independent body of water about 6,000
years BC. Ancient Lake Päijänne extended from the present-day Pihtiputa
area to Salpausselä and its surface was about ten meters higher than it
is today. Around 4000 BC, Ancient Lake Päijänne broke a channel for
itself from the present-day Kymijoki River to the south and its surface
fell rapidly. Over the following millennia, the surface of Lake Päijänne
gradually fell to its current level. The lowering of the water level led
to the formation of several small bodies of water. Some old place names
refer to a waterline that was higher than it is today, such as Saari,
located in the middle of a field. Stone Age settlements have been found
in the Jämsä region, such as Hietamäki on the north side of the Patajoki
River, where the oldest finds have been dated to around 7550 BC.
Half a dozen Iron Age settlements have been found in the Jämsä region.
Based on grave finds from Puttola, it has been concluded that Jämsä was
first inhabited in the 9th century, during the Viking Age. At that time,
the period of uninterrupted settlement leading to the present day began.
The oldest traces of settlement are of Häme origin. At the end of the
Iron Age, Jämsä was the northernmost permanent settlement in the Häme
region of Lake Päijänne. The local name, in turn, has left numerous
memories of ancient Lapp settlement. Jämsä was in the hinterland of Häme
and, according to legend, people moved to the area from Sahalahti and
Sääksmäki. Several municipalities in southern Häme have villages with
the same name as Jämsä. There are two ancient Iron Age castles in Jämsä:
Pukinvuori and Linnasenvuori.
Häme was annexed to Catholic Finland in the mid-13th century. Before
that, Byzantines from Novgorod had been doing missionary work in the
area, and eastern Häme was partly baptized by them. Finland was in the
middle of two religions. The era was warlike, because the religious
border was also the middle area of the early Hanseatic League.
According to folk tales, the battles of the Novgorodians and Karelians
against the Finns also extended to the Jämsä region. According to
tradition, Linnasenvuori was an ancient camp site for the Muscovites,
but the Finns prevented the conqueror from camping there. According to
the tales, Finnish troops defeated the Muscovites (including Karelians
and Novgorodians) at the so-called Veriniity, which is located on the
western slope of the Linnasenmäki ravine.
The earliest documented
mention of Jämsä is from 1442. The Jämsä administration was probably
established in the 1410s, when it was the northernmost administration in
Häme. At first, Jämsä was part of Hauho parish, and from 1582 onwards,
it was part of Sääksmäki parish. The tax municipalities of the Jämsä
administration were Kauhkiala and Moiskala. Medieval Jämsä included the
area of the present-day city of Jämsä as well as Korpilahti,
Petäjävesi, Muurame and Säynätsalo, but not Kuorevetti and Längelmäki,
which originally belonged to the Kangasala parish.
The first
representative of public authority in Jämsä was the Catholic church;
Jämsä was the chapel of the Sysmä parish, which became independent in
1442. Jämsä probably formed its own parish before 1500. The first
documented mention of a vicar of Jämsä dates back to 1497. According to
tradition, the earliest church in Jämsä was the Church of St. Lawrence.
The Jämsä region initially belonged to the Diocese of Turku, and from
1554 to the Diocese of Vyborg.
According to the first land register of Häme (1539), the number of
houses in Jämsä was 91, and there were 36 villages. The population grew
rapidly at that time. A mill center developed in the 16th century near
the center of what is now Jämsänkoski. Water flowed in the rapids all
year round, making them the most efficient mill rapids in Häme.
In the Battle of the Hammers in 1597, the Jämsä people joined the ranks
of other Häme peasants. Iivari Arvidinpoika Tawast murdered several
hundred peasants who had been tricked into surrendering in the Battle of
Nyystölä on the Padasjoki River, and the victors also destroyed the Häme
farmers. About a third of the farms in Jämsä were deserted. The result
was the migration of the Savo people who had been living in the
wilderness of northern Häme to the Häme region of Lake Päijänne.
According to one theory, the Jämsä dialect began to become Savo-like at
that time, and Iivari Arvidinpoika became the most hated nobleman in
Häme.
The conscription during the Thirty Years' War put a strain
on Jämsä. Most wanted to avoid being drafted into the war and fled to
the wilderness. The horsemen were equipped by the farms of Auvila,
Heikkilä and Yijälä.
During the Great War, 1713–1721, the
Russians also destroyed the Jämsä region; the locals took refuge in
Synninlukko. The monument to the Great War is Miekkainpetäjä, an ancient
and burnt-out pine tree next to the Miekkainpetäjä cemetery.
Common-ownership agriculture gave way to private ownership in the Great
Division, which began in 1756. At that time, the Jämsä region had 38
divisions and 189 villages. The wealthiest houses were located along the
Jämsänjoki River. The industrialization of the Jämsän region began in
1792, when Jämsänkoski got its first water sawmill. The region's
business life began to pick up.
In the new provincial division
implemented by Gustav III in 1775, Suur-Jämsä formed the northeastern
corner of Häme County. Petäjävesi and Korpilahden Vesipuoli were
assigned to Vaasa County, and thus Petäjävesi was administratively
separated from Jämsä. The provincial division remained until 1960, when
the Central Finland County was established, which in turn was annexed to
the newly established Western Finland County in 1997. In 2009, the
entire county was abolished.
During the Finnish War in 1809, up to 8,000 Russian soldiers were
stationed in the Jämsä region. The people of Jämsä had to surrender
their weapons and swear allegiance to the emperor. The change of power
was relatively peaceful, and it had relatively little impact on people's
lives. The transition to Russian rule brought so-called pocket Russians
to Finland, who were in fact mostly Karelian traveling merchants. In
1845, the Jyväskylä doctor Wolmar Schildt complained that pocket
Russians who spread venereal diseases had settled in Jämsä.
The
municipality of Jämsä was founded on 28 December 1866. The location was
Auvilan Rustholli. The area of the municipality included present-day
Jämsä, with the exception of Kuorevesi and Längelmäki. The so-called Old
Jämsä era began, which ended with the independence of Jämsänkoski and
Koskenpää in 1926. The administrative area of Jämsä was at its
smallest in the years 1926–2001. After the turn of the millennium,
Kuorevesi (2001) and most of Längelmäki (2007) were annexed to Jämsä.
The merger of Jämsänkoski and Jämsä municipalities was a local eternal
topic until they were finally merged in 2009. The administrative
separation that had lasted for more than 80 years came to an end.
The Jämsä parish was founded in 1869. In addition to Jämsä, the
parish originally included areas in Northern Häme (Eräjärvi, Kuhmalahti,
Kuhmoinen, Kuorevesi, Luopioinen, Korpilahti, Muurame and Säynätsalo). A
hundred years later, in connection with the 1960 parish changes, Keuruu,
Multia, Petäjävesi and Pihlajavesi were transferred from Laukaa parish
to Jämsä parish.
The school system began to take shape in the
second half of the 19th century. Jämsä received its first elementary
school in 1869, although at first only a few percent of the youth
attended school. The most conservatives opposed school activities, as
they considered them to be corrupting to the youth. At the same time, a
strong temperance movement emerged in Jämsä, which protected the people
from the curses of alcohol. Industry developed: the first pulp mill in
Jämsänkoski was completed in 1888, but it burned down eight years later
and was replaced by a more modern plant, which brought electric lighting
to the town, among other things. Paper exports abroad began.
An important part of the local educational efforts was the school. To
get it started, the Jämsän Suomalaisen Yhteiskoulun Osakeyhtiö was
founded in 1905, and the school began operating that same autumn. The
school building was completed in 1908, and was popularly known as the
Tattikoulu because of its unusual tower. The private school's finances
were partly based on state grants and partly on tuition fees. The
municipality of Jämsä took ownership of the school in 1968.
The
1907 parliamentary elections revealed the political preferences of the
people of Jämsä: the Social Democrats received about 70% of the votes
cast. The new socialist way of thinking of the factory workers was at
odds with the farm workers who were accustomed to an agrarian culture.
However, no particular left-wing radicalization occurred in the Jämsä
region.
During the Finnish Civil War in 1918, Jämsä was left out of the
actual frontline battles. There was a lot of White Terror in Jämsä,
while the Red Terror was almost completely absent. The Jämsä militia
killed dozens of members of labor unions and suspected Reds. The most
famous people in Jämsä who participated in the White Terror were the
owner of the Saari Manor, Hjalmar Saari, his assistant Johannes From,
alias Rummin Jussi, and the Kärkölä-based construction master and
militia leader Veikko Sippola. About sixty people were shot against the
wall of the Saari farm and buried in the Jämsä churchyard. Executions
also took place in the Jämsä churchyard.
Workers fled from Jämsä
to Tampere, where some of them joined the Red Guards and took part, for
example, in the battles of Länkipohja under the leadership of the Jämsä
company commander Ivar Jokinen. The same Jokinen was captured in the
battle, and was later shot on Saari.source? At least two books have been
published about the events in Jämsä: Jukka Rislak's Time of Horror and
the posthumously published memoirs of the Jämsä Red Soldier Emil Aalto.
The Jämsä rural municipality, which covered more than a thousand
square kilometers, was divided into three independent rural
municipalities in 1926. The Koskenpää rural municipality comprised the
northern third of old Jämsä (area 334.8 km² in 1945), and the relatively
densely populated Jämsänkoski rural municipality (57.8 km² in 1945) was
established in the middle of old Jämsä. The southern third of old Jämsä
and large areas on both sides of the Jämsänkoski were determined as the
administrative area of Jämsä. The area of the region was 655.7 km²
in 1945. Jämsä retained its rough U-shape until the beginning of the
following century, when Kuorevesi was annexed to Jämsä. Before World War
II, the Jämsä riverside was recorded as a densely populated community
(established in 1923). In 1940, its population was around 1,100.
In the mid-1920s, the Jämsä region had two cinemas, and they too
reflected the political division of the time: one was bourgeois and the
other was a working-class theatre. The depression of the 1930s brought
down several Jämsä farms and the leather industry in the region
withered. The number of beggars rose sharply. An aircraft factory was
established in Halli at the end of the 1930s, and a vibrant industrial
community developed in the area.
During the Winter War, thousands
of evacuees arrived in Jämsä, mainly from Karelia. Land ownership
conditions caused friction between locals and immigrants. During World
War II, Ilveslinna Castle in Jämsänkoski served as a military hospital,
and the factory's heroic dead were given a memorial on an island between
the Patala rapids.
After World War II, Jämsänkoski's
industrialization accelerated. The Kaipola paper mill was established in
1952, and a felt industry was also established in Partala. The central
part of Jämsänkoski in particular became a vibrant area with advanced
municipal technology and living conditions. The residents of Jämsänkoski
had a particularly high number of radio licenses in the 1950s.
In
the 1960s, the central part of Jämsänkoski underwent a transformation.
Sidewalks were built and the streets were asphalted. Streets began to be
named in an urban style. Jämsänkoski became a market town at the end of
the decade. The people of Jämsä had a poor understanding of cultural
environments, and almost all the old valuable environments were
destroyed. Environmental protection was also in a bad state. The
Jämsänjoki River was polluted, overflowing with sulfur emissions and
fish died. The tourism industry took a huge leap forward in the 1980s,
when the Himos ski resort was developed. The importance of the service
industry as an employer has gradually increased and the need for
industrial labor has decreased.
In the early 2000s, several municipal mergers were made in the Jämsä region. Jämsä, together with Kuhmoinen, was transferred to the Pirkanmaa hospital district at the beginning of 2013. At the same time, discussions have begun about the possibility of Jämsä changing provinces from Central Finland to Pirkanmaa. The change of province would reduce the population of the former by eight percent, while it would increase the population of the latter by four percent.
In the earliest times, waterways, such as Päijänne and Jämsänjoki,
formed natural routes. In the 17th century, the road network in Häme was
very sparse and its maintenance was the responsibility of the common
people. The most important roads ran far south of Jämsä: from Turku via
Hämeenlinna to Vyborg and from Helsinki via Hämeenlinna and Pälkäne to
Tammerkoski. One of the first notable land connections through Jämsä was
the Old Laukaantie, which led from Lauka to Pälkäne, and was marked on
the map of 1696. Another old road connection ran from Hollola to
Kuhmoini. The intersection of these two memorable land connections was
located in Alhojärvi.
The construction of the Jämsä–Jyväskylä
road, or the old four-lane road, began in 1861. Highway 4 ran along the
western side of Lake Päijänne until 1996, when it was moved to the
eastern side of the lake. The highway from Lahti to Jämsä was renumbered
24. Highway 9 was established with the 1938 road numbering system.
Highways 9 and 24 intersect southwest of the center of Jämsä and are
single-lane in the Jämsä region. The main road routes in Jämsä were
mainly aligned to their current routes in the 1950s and 1960s. Major
renovations were carried out in 1989 and 2003, when bypass lanes were
built, among other things. The road from Jämsä to Vilppula was completed
in 1915. Bus services to Jyväskylä and the Vilppula railway station
began in 1924. Long-distance lines from Tampere and Lahti via Jämsä to
Jyväskylä began at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s, when the village of
Jämsä became a busy bus traffic hub.
Jämsä was connected to the
Finnish railway network in 1951, when the line from Orivesi to
Jämsänkoski was completed. The section from Jämsänkoski to Jyväskylä was
completed in 1977. The Orivesi–Jyväskylä railway connection is
single-track. Before the completion of the Orivesi–Jämsänkoski railway,
the nearest railway station was located in Vilppula, along the
Tampere–Haapamäki railway, which opened in 1882.
The original dialect of the Jämsä region was probably Häme dialect.
The current Jämsä dialect belongs to the Päijät-Häme group of Savo
dialects. There is no complete certainty about the reasons for the
Savo-ization of the Jämsä dialect; one possibility is the migration of
Savo-speaking people to Häme after the Cuirass War. The ancient Karelian
population of the region may also have influenced the Savo-ization of
the dialect. The border between the western and eastern dialects
currently runs through the administrative area of Jämsä, so that in
Kuorevesi and Längelmäki the speech is clearly western, while in the
area of old Jämsä, people's speech has an eastern influence, although
this is gradually disappearing.
The migration from Häme to Jämsä
left its mark on the names of the Jämsä-based farms, which are mostly of
Häme origin, such as Apiala and Yijälä. The majority of the names
originate from the Pälkäne and Sääksmäki regions. However, the oldest
layer of names is Lappish, such as Mella, which is based on the word
mielle, meaning sand dune.
Jämsä is located on the western shore of Lake Päijänne between Tampere and Jyväskylä. The 62nd parallel passes through Jämsä, with Koskenpää located north of the parallel. Jämsä is roughly 50 kilometres long from south to north and 50 kilometres wide from west to east. The population centre, or Jämsä's central settlement, is in the southern part of the municipality, quite close to the western shores of Lake Päijänne.
Jämsä's nature is typical of Lake Finland, with forested hills dotted
with waterways and agricultural fields. The forests are dominated by
conifers, with birch also being a common tree species. Noble deciduous
trees are found in Jämsä at the northern edge of their natural range.
Jämsä's altitude above sea level is quite low, around 80–240 metres.
Most of the central part of Jämsä and the surrounding extensive
agricultural area rise to a maximum height of 120 meters. The lowest
areas in the area include the surface of Lake Päijänne, which rises 78
meters above sea level. Kaipolanvuori (233 meters) and the eastern slope
of Himosvuori (220 meters) rise more than two hundred meters. There are
large differences in height in the Jämsänniemi peninsula in the Himos
area, where the slopes of Lake Päijänne and Himos are located side by
side.
In terms of bedrock, Jämsä belongs to the deep rock area of
central Finland. The dominant types are coarse-grained granodiorites
and granites, which are often porphyritic and weathered in places.
Weathered rock has also been found in the area around Jämsä.
The
Inner Finland Margin Formation, which is similar to the Salpausselki but
younger, runs northwest of Tampere from Hämeenkangas via Orivesi and
Jämsä to Laukaa. The meltwaters of the last ice age associated with its
formation and melting have shaped several valleys in Jämsä. The
glacier's meltwater flowed along numerous fault valleys in the
present-day Jämsä area.
The ice edge had retreated about 50
kilometers to the north of the margin formation when the climate cooled
and the glacier advanced onto the margin formation for about a hundred
years, until the climate began to warm again and the ice melted.
Meltwater has flowed through almost all of Jämsä's valleys, with the
direction of the Ouninpohja-Isojärvi valley as its direction.
The
best-known of Jämsä's many gorges is probably Synninlukko, located
northwest of the center of Jämsä. There are numerous legends associated
with Synninlukko. The Vororot gorge complex is located southwest of the
center of Jämsä. Other notable gorges include Mullikkarotti, Pirunryöni,
Rotkojärvi or Ruuhijärvi and Surmajärvi Synninlukko.
The share of lakes and rivers in Jämsä is approximately one seventh
of the area. A significant part of the water body belongs to Lake
Päijänne, which spreads over several municipalities. Jämsä also contains
the northeastern part of Koljonselkä, which belongs to Längelmävesi.
Other lakes in the area include Eväjärvi, Iso Rautavesi, Kankarisvesi,
Kerteselkä, Kuorevesi, Nytkymenjärvi and Salosvesi. There are 465 large
bodies of water with an area of at least one hectare.
Jämsä is
located in the watershed of the Kokemäenjoki main watershed (35) and the
Kymijoki main watershed (14). The eastern and central areas of the
municipality belong to the Kymijoki watershed, the western areas to the
Kokemäenjoki watershed.
The catchment area of the Jämsä route
of the first division of the Kymijoki main watershed covers almost the
entire Koskenpää and Jämsänkoski, as well as the center of Jämsä and the
central part of Jämsänniemi. The Suur-Päijänne area of the first
division of the Kymijoki watershed covers the eastern, southeastern and
southern areas of Jämsä.
The catchment area of the Längelmävesi
and Hauho routes of the first division of the Kokemäenjoki main
watershed covers the southwestern part of Jämsä, i.e. the southern part
of Längelmäki and Kuorevesi. The catchment area of the Keuruu route of
the first division of the Kokemäenjoki watershed covers the western and
northwestern part of Jämsä, i.e. the northern part of Kuorevesi and the
westernmost parts of Koskenpää.