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Eternal Koli

Tourism centre and beloved national landscape

Offering you the most beloved national landscape, Koli is an all-year travel destination. Koli is an arena for nature and culture events, a genuine North Karelian countryside village, home to a national park, and a gate to North Karelia, renowned for its food, nature, and happy people.

The Koli national park
The most beloved national landscape in Finland

The national landscape opening up over the majestic fells of the Koli national park the most beloved in all of Finland never fails to give rise to profound emotions.
The landscape of sky, water, and woods, reaching across the great lake Pielinen, is Finland at its most authentic. The Koli landscape, which became a symbol of Finnish citizenship more than a hundred years ago, has enchanted artists and ordinary people from one decade and generation to the next. Artists’ overlooks, the light quartzite rocks, the wild lake Pielinen, the swidden fields, traditional landscapes, and a diverse route network together with plentiful services make Koli a favourite destination for travellers who appreciate nature.

Gate to North Karelia
To Joensuu, Ruunaa rapids, Valamo monastery...

It will take about one hour by car on the road running in the middle of the North Karelian national landscapes to arrive at the wild Ruunaa rapids and the Lieksa Brass Week festival, the Eastern orthodox Ilomantsi or Heinävesi monasteries, to Juuka, Joensuu, Nurmes, and even Russian Karelia. Koli is an excellent gate to a tour of national parks: In addition to Koli, the Petkeljärvi, Patvinsuo, and Tiilikkajärvi national parks and other nature destinations in the region invite you to take a day trip from Koli.

The oldest bedrock in Europe
The tallest point in Southern Finland

Volcanoes, tropical vegetation, dinosaurs! To walk on the hard quartzite rocks of Koli is to walk on the oldest soil in all of Europe. Much of our common history has been stored exclusively in stones and rock. Koli is an internationally unique area, where the rocks tell an exceptionally vivid story about the history of the earth, the shifting continental plates, the formation of mountain ranges, and erosion occurring over millions of years. The current peaks of Koli the tallest in Southern Finland are remnants of the Karelides mountain range, which is thought to have reached heights of more than four kilometres, just like the present day Alps.

Koli village life
The heart of the visitor centre

Koli is not only a travel destination, but also an authentic countryside village with about 250 inhabitants near the border between Lieksa and Juuka. Koli is home to two sports clubs, hunting societies, Finland’s most beautiful village shop, a library, a day care centre, a local culture museum, a church, an optic fibre network, and the Koli school which educates children up to the ninth grade. Most Koli inhabitants make their living off tourism in some way, and all travellers, summer residents, and the artists at the Ryynänen residence enrich life in the village. Because tourism is such an important part of the community, Koli has developed value-based guidelines for the development of the region which contain important instructions for travellers, entrepreneurs, inhabitants, and the authorities.