Virrat
Virrat [ vir ɑt ː ] (Swedish: Virdois ) is a city in western Finland with 7385 inhabitants ( 31 December 2012). It lies in the northern part of the landscape Pirkanmaa, 106 kilometers north of Tampere and 115 kilometers west of Jyväskylä. Neighboring cities and municipalities are Alavus in the north, Ähtäri in the northeast, Keuruu in the east, Mänttä - Vilppula to the southeast, and Ruovesi Ylöjärvi in the south and Kihniö in the West. Virrat is monolingual Finnish speakers.
The urban area of Virrat is very spread out with 1,300 square kilometers. In addition to the city center are among Virrat the villages Äijänneva, Harkonen Jäähdyspohja, Killinkoski, Koro, Kotala, Kurjenkylä, Liedenpohja, Ohtola, Vaskuu and Vaskivesi. Virrat located in a lakeside scenery at the north end of the Näsijärvi Lakes system. Altogether there are in the urban area of more than 300 lakes with a total shoreline length of 1,000 kilometers.
The community Virrat was created by the municipal reform of 1868. 1974 was Virrat to market towns, in 1977 a town. Virrat is strongly affected by the rural exodus: 1950, the population was still about 12,000.
The old church of Virrat is a built in 1772-1774 wooden cruciform church. In the village Killinkoski one built in 1929 by Josef Stenbäck wooden church stands in the Art Nouveau, also Liedenpohja also has its own village church built in 1961. The historic industrial milieu around the spinning founded in 1886, and in 1899 opened cord factory Killinkoski is now a listed building.
Virrat is twinned with the town of Årjäng in Sweden, Gol in Norway and Aulum - Haderup in Denmark.