What Does it Take to Move an Entire Town 2 Miles East?

The (literally) moving story of Kiruna, Sweden

Kiruna
Kiruna, Sweden.
Pechristener/Creative Commons

The corners of history abound with stories of cities that have had to be abandoned for one reason or another. Centralia, Pennsylvania might be the most famous example — a town made uninhabitable by an underground fire. Centralia is far from the only town that’s had to face a difficult decision — abandonment or relocation — over the years. But the response of the Swedish town of Kiruna stands out for its comprehensiveness — and for the epic scale on which it took place.

At Metropolis, Molly Butcher writes about a new exhibition tracing the recent history of Kiruna. The short version? Kiruna is a mining town, with an iron mine located nearby. What provided the town with industry wound up having an unpleasant side effect: the mine made the land on which parts of the town stood unstable.

Kiruna is currently in the process of being moved 2 miles to the east — or at least some of its buildings are. (Others are being demolished and, presumably, replaced.) And given the role of iron mining in all of this, that industry has played a role in determining the speed of the move:

As the price of iron goes up, the speed of extraction increases. And as the mine removes the equivalent of a 12-story building of material from the ground each day, the city sinks at a rate of two inches each year.

The exhibit documenting the move, Kiruna Forever, is hosted by the Stockholm-based museum ArkDes. It’s running there through early February of 2021.

Subscribe here for our free daily newsletter.

The InsideHook Newsletter.

News, advice and insights for the most interesting person in the room.