Kauhajoki


Kauhajoki is a town and municipality of Finland. The city is unilingually Finnish.
It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Southern Ostrobothnia region. The population of Kauhajoki is and the municipality covers an area of of which is inland water. The population density is.

History

Permanent settlement in the Kauhajoki area began in the 16th century and in 1584 chapel was built in Kauhajoki.
When the Soviet Union attacked Finland in the Winter War, in early December 1939 Parliament was evacuated and the legislature temporarily relocated to Kauhajoki, a town in western Finland far away from the frontline. The parliament held 34 plenary sessions in Kauhajoki, with the last on 12 February 1940.

2008 vocational college shooting

On 23 September 2008, a school shooting at a vocational college in the city left 11 dead, including the gunman, and another woman wounded. The incident was the second school shooting in less than a year in Finland, the other being the Jokela school shooting in November 2007, in which nine people including the gunman died. Before that, only one other school shooting had taken place in the country's history, in Rauma in 1989, leaving two people dead.

Sports

Some internationally successful Kauhajokian sports figures include:
Kauhajoki is also known about basketball club Kauhajoen Karhu, which plays in the Finnish first-tier league Korisliiga.