Kiruna

Kiruna is Sweden's northernmost town, about 145 kilometres above the Arctic Circle. It grew around **the largest underground iron mine in the world**, and the mine is still working — it has been dug so far beneath the town that the ground began to subside, and an unprecedented decision followed: **move the entire town three kilometres east**. Historic buildings are being lifted onto platforms and carried across one at a time, a process running since 2014 that will take decades. But the mine is not what most visitors come for: the **northern lights**, the **Icehotel** at Jukkasjärvi, rebuilt from scratch each winter out of the Torne river's ice, and **Abisko National Park**, which sits beneath what is called the "blue hole" — a persistent gap in the cloud that makes it one of the most reliable aurora sites on earth. Note: the sun **does not set** between late May and mid-July, and **does not rise** between early December and early January.