IIAPARANDA, from Haaparanta, "Aspen-shore," a small town of Sweden in the district of Tornea, at the northern end of the Gulf of Bothnia, in 65° 51' N. lat. It lies about a mile from the mouth of the Tornea-Elf, exactly opposite the town of Torned, which has belonged to Russia since 1809. Haparanda was founded in 1812, and at first bore the name of Carljohansstad or Charles John's Town. -It received its municipal constitution in 1842. The inhabitants, who according to the census of 1875 number 944, carry on a brisk trade and engage in ship-building. Since 1859 the town has been the seat of a meteorological station, which is one of the most valuable in Europe, not only because it lies so far north, but also because of its position at the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, and immediately to the south of the line of junction between the permanently open sea and the sea which is frozen during the winter months, or, in other words, in the region where at certain seasons there is an extraordinary crowding together of the isothermal lines.