Falu Kommun

With a total area of 2,275 square kilometres, Falu Kommun ranks in the top half of all municipalities in Dalarna in terms of its area. Its largest north-south extension is about 70 kilometres, and east-west about 65 kilometres. To the north and north-east, the municipality borders the northern Swedish province of Gävleborgs Län.

235 square kilometres, or about 10 per cent of the municipality's area, are covered by the 470 lakes that exist within Falu Kommun. Among them is the 63 square kilometre Runn, the largest lake in the municipality and the second largest lake in Dalarna after Lake Siljan. Otherwise, the landscape within Falu Kommun is a characteristic low mountain range landscape with rocky elevations and numerous ice-age moraines as well as heavy forestation, whereby almost 90 percent of the land area is forested and less than 5 percent is used for agriculture.

Experiencing Falu Kommun's nature

As a destination, Falu Kommun offers you a beautiful combination of many activities in nature and interesting cultural and historical highlights. In addition to 30 nature reserves where you can explore the unspoilt nature on marked trails, the municipality offers a well-developed network of hiking trails of varying lengths and levels of difficulty. These include the 30-kilometre hiking trail Vattnets väg till gruvan, which follows the course of the water along medieval ore mines, miners' farms and blast furnaces, or the 35-kilometre-long Vildmarksvägen, which leads mostly through unspoilt nature.

If you prefer to explore nature by bike rather than on foot, there is an equally extensive network of cycle paths. If you are an ambitious mountain biker, the winter sports facilities of Lugnet and Källviken offer challenging cross-country and downhill trails during the summer.

During the winter, you will find numerous cross-country ski trails within the municipality, and the three winter sports facilities Källviksbaken, Bjursås Ski Center and Svärdsjöliften offer a good choice for downhill skiing and snowboarding, with a total of ten ski lifts and 25 slopes.

In summer, the numerous lakes invite you to go fishing or canoeing. A canoe trail between the lakes Balungen and Runn, equipped with three overnight campsites along the route, enables a paddling tour of about four days over a distance of 60 kilometres, crossing almost the entire municipal area in a north-south direction. Those looking for a spot for a refreshing swim will find one at almost every lake - in addition, there are a total of 17 official bathing places, some of them with beautiful sandy beaches, which offer a certain comfort for a summer bathing excursion with well-kept sunbathing lawns, bathing bridges, toilets and barbecue areas.

Cultural-historical highlights of the region

From a cultural point of view, Falu Kommun has two highlights of international standing to offer: Firstly, the thousand-year-old copper mine Falu Gruva, which has been declared a World Heritage Site, and secondly, the Carl Larsson-Gården, the home of the famous painter Carl Larsson and his family, which has been preserved in its original form.

The provincial museum Dalarnas Museum tells in its exhibitions about regional traditions and the different facets of historical development in the region, while local history museums such as Dössbergets Hembygdsgård or historic churches such as the wooden church Envikens Gamla Kyrka reflect former rural life. Industrial museums such as Korså Bruk or Svartnäs Bruk bear witness to the long tradition of metal extraction and processing in the region.

Falu Kommun in figures

As the most populous municipality in the province of Dalarna, Falu Kommun, with around 60,000 inhabitants, has a relatively high population density, with an average of 30 inhabitants per square kilometre. The disparity between urban and rural areas is relatively high, as the catchment area of the city of Falun alone has a population of around 37,000. All the other towns in the municipality are much smaller - the two next largest towns after Falun, Bjursås and Grycksbo, have only around 2,000 and 1,900 inhabitants respectively.