Built on a land rich in minerals, Kiruna, in the far north of Sweden, was constructed in the late 19th century to house the workers of an iron-ore mine.
Since then so much ore has been extracted that the town is at risk of sinking into the hollowed-out land. Its most important buildings are being moved – one by one – to a new location, courtesy of mining company LKAB.
Despite this, extraction in Kiruna is not likely to end any time soon. In January 2023, LKAB announced that there are also rare earth elements amongst the region’s underground riches: ‘the largest known deposit of its kind in Europe’.1
The state-owned company has announced plans to sink another mineshaft to extract these minerals, along with more iron ore and phosphorus.
Someone else’s backyard
This remote land is home to the Indigenous Sámi people – Kiruna was built on Sámi land – who see in these plans more threats to their traditional way of life. ‘This was
