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Lapland, (also Sápmi), is the area traditionally inhabited by the Sami people. It is located in Northern Europe and includes the northern parts of Scandinavia and Finland with the Kola peninsula in Russia. The Sami people covering a total area in the Nordic countries corresponding to the size of Sweden. The Sami are one of the largest groups of indigenous peoples in Europe. Their languages are the Sami languages, which are classified as Finno-Ugric.
The Sami call their ancestral lands Sápmi. Traditional occupations are hunting, fishing, reindeer herding and farming, but today only a minority of the Sami are making a living from these things alone. The population is estimated to about 85,000, although it is difficult to establish exactly how many there are. Roughly half live in Norway, although Sweden also has a significant group. Finland and Russia only have smaller groups located in the far north, including the Russian Kola peninsula. The Sami in Russia were forced by the Soviet authorities into one collective called Lovozero / Lojàvri, in the central part of the Kola peninsula.
The Sami peoples have inhabited the northern regions of Scandinavia since far back into antiquity. How far back is a matter of discussion, but most experts agree that we can trace Sami culture back around 2000-2500 years. They are undoubtedly the oldest ethnic group in the area they live in, all other nationalites have arrived later. The Sami language is divided into nine dialects, of which several have their own written languages (orthography). Southern Sami cannot understand Northern Sami. Most dialects are spoken in several countries, because linguistic borders do not correspond to national borders. The Sami language is part of the Finno-Ugric family, related to Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian but not to Norwegian and kin. Due to prolonged contact with the Scandinavians, however, there are a large number of Germanic words in Sami.

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