Until a few years ago, Kiruna’s city center still pulsated here. Now everything is deserted.Image: Reto Fehr
Kiruna has a problem. Sweden’s northernmost city is in danger of collapsing. There were two options: move the city or close the area’s main employer. The second wasn’t an option after all.
May 3, 2026, 7:39 p.mMay 3, 2026, 7:39 p.m
The sun slowly sets here in spring winter and bathes the scenery in a wonderful light. I walk right through the center of the city. Nobody lives here anymore. The shops are closed and some of the windows are broken. The Christmas lights are still hanging on the street lamps. I only meet one person.
The Christmas lights are still there, but other than that there is practically no life here anymore.Image: Reto Fehr
There is now a huge construction site where the central square used to be. The buildings on these streets will be demolished in the foreseeable future. The area is not cordoned off. But why should you go here if there’s nothing left there anyway?
This was the central square of the old city center. Now everything around here is being dismantled.Image: Reto Fehr
I’m in Kiruna, the northernmost city in Sweden. Around 20,000 people live here north of the Arctic Circle. I came for that Fjallraven Polara sled dog adventure in the remoteness of Lapland.
To be honest, I had never heard of Kiruna before. A colleague told me before we left that this was the city that had to move. There was this video of the church being driven away in one piece last August.
In January 2007, Kiruna’s fate was sealed. The city council decided that the center of the city must be moved five kilometers to the east. The move is expected to be completed by the mid-2030s. In May 2020, one of the strongest earthquakes recorded in Sweden occurred in the region, measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale. This is not particularly strong, but there are noticeable vibrations and, depending on the building, these can cause damage. The special thing about it: The earthquake was probably triggered by mining.
The old bell tower was curbed. The round building in the middle is the new town hall, with busy construction going on in the background.Image: Reto Fehr
The lifeline is also the problem
Kiruna’s problem is also its lifeline: the mine. It is considered the world’s largest iron ore mine. If all of the system’s underground paths were strung together, the tunnel would reach from northern Sweden to South Africa. In 2023, a vein containing rare earths was also found. This deposit is the largest in Europe.
The view of the mine. The park in the foreground is the “puffer park” and you are not allowed to enter it. I photographed it from the old city center, which is being dismantled.Image: Reto Fehr
It’s very simple: without the mine, the city would never have existed. In 1900, industrial mining began after the railway line was completed.
It’s still the same today: the town actually only exists thanks to the mine. Practically everything here is at least indirectly dependent on the work. But the deposits lie largely beneath today’s city. It has been practically undermined and is therefore in danger of collapse.
The new street and traffic signs in the new city center are still temporary.Image: Reto Fehr
There were two options
There were two options: close the mine or rein in the city. Because the end of the mine would also mean the end of the city, the latter was decided. The mining operator LKAB has to cover the billions in costs.
In the old city center.Image: Reto Fehr
Initially the plan was to relocate 6,000 residents, now around 12,000 are affected. The residents had a choice: either they sold their apartment at a surcharge of 25 percent of the market price or they were offered a comparable apartment in the new city center. Some residents decided to take the money, but the vast majority stayed.
39 new apartments should be completed in 2025. But it will take a little longer.Image: Reto Fehr
The whole church was moved
Historical buildings such as the impressive church were shipped as a whole to the new location. It was a spectacle last summer. The church is now in its new location, but it is not yet accessible. There is a lot of construction going on all around.
The church is already in its new location and the surrounding buildings will soon be completed. The area is still largely cordoned off.Image: Reto Fehr
The bell tower of the old town hall was also moved to the new center. There it now stands next to the new government building.
The old bell tower in the new city center can be seen to the right of center. The new center continues to be built around it.Image: Reto Fehr
Inside the new building there is a model of the city showing which parts of the city have to disappear. Kind of frightening.
Everything is drawn on the city model in the government building.Image: Reto Fehr
My hotel is practically right next to it. It opened in May 2025. The entire district here is around three to five years old. The hospital still has to move; the education center with a high school, university and library were recently inaugurated.
Here Google Maps is a little behind. The church is now in the center of the picture, the forest around it has been cleared and buildings are being built. The new center to the right is practically finished.Image: Google Maps
In 40 minutes into the past
I walk into the old city center. This takes around 40 minutes and is like a walk back in time. There is construction going on in the new district, a lot of things are new. Then come the older buildings, but they can still stay.
During the first and second phases, around 6,000 residents have to leave their homes. The buildings in the first phase have practically all been cleared and some have been dismantled. The houses in the 2nd phase are mostly still inhabited. Will a 3rd phase be needed at some point?Image: google maps/watson
The city center is being demolished and behind it is Gruvstadsparken (Mine City Park), which is not accessible and is considered a buffer zone. The town hall used to stand here, among other things. The streets end in nothingness, the snow still covers the wounds even in April. But Google Maps reveals them:
Everything here has already been dismantled. Part of the “buffer park” in Kiruna.image: google maps
Open heart surgery
Streets that end at the barrier and get lost in the park. The sun is low, there is a very special atmosphere here. The mine’s excavated piles pile up in the background. The company has given everything to the city and is now taking parts of it back.
In the background the excavated mountains of the mine, in the foreground the snow covers the remains of the dismantling operations, the entire park is cordoned off. Image: Reto Fehr
I’ve been to ghost towns. Kolmannskuppe in the Namib Desert, for example. People left the place when the diamond deposits came to an end. The desert has now taken over the houses there again. There are only witnesses to an almost forgotten time. But here you are walking through a city with over 20,000 inhabitants, you change the side of the street and immerse yourself in a ghost town. I don’t have the words to describe this. Open heart surgery is performed here.
The church is one of the historic buildings that experienced the move as a whole.Image: Reto Fehr
No comparison to the largest planned city
If your house is within the “Impact Line”, you have to leave, you’re in luck on the other side of the street. At least for now. Maybe it will be expanded again.
In 2015 I visited Oyala, somewhere in the jungle of Equatorial Guinea. At the time it was the largest construction site in Africa (and probably still is today). Thousands of workers from China built the country’s new capital in the middle of nowhere. 200,000 residents are said to live there one day. President Teodoro Obiang’s project was virtually uninhabited at the time. I had never seen anything like it before. It was incredibly weird, but pretty emotionless. Oyala had no soul.
It’s simply a plan of a self-important old man. The city is now called Ciudad de la Paz and has been the capital of Equatorial Guinea since 2026. It’s not that rare: if the name refers to something too obviously, it probably has little to do with it in the end. I think of the FIFA Peace Prize or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. But we digress.
Kiruna is alive, Kiruna has a soul
In my opinion, Ciudad de la Paz and Kiruna have nothing in common. Except that they will be rebuilt shortly. Kiruna is alive, Kiruna has a soul. Even if you have to look for them in some places. Like at the train station, which is currently a temporary structure and is located around 1.5 kilometers north of the original train station.
The temporary Kiruna train station.Image: Reto Fehr
Passenger trains use it as a terminal station. The locomotive is being relocated on the way from Stockholm to Narvik because the southern part of the original railway line is in danger of collapsing.
Only trains from the mine run there. A new train station – with a new track layout – is to be built further east. Until then, free buses will run between the new city center and the temporary train station. Actually as a kind of compensation for the circumstances.
Waiting for the train at the makeshift station. The statue of the four workers shows what Kiruna is all about.Image: Reto Fehr
How do the residents deal with it?
And how do people react to the entire dislocation of their city? Surprisingly pragmatic. It usually sounds like this: Yes, you have to do it. Closing the mine is not an option and the company is paying for everything. Then they lived five kilometers further east.
This quarter is also already empty and will soon be demolished.Image: Reto Fehr
And if five kilometers aren’t enough? Or what if new measurements show that even more of the old city needs to be cleared? Although: The makers have probably already thought of something. And otherwise they’ll just move again. Operating the mine definitely seems to be financially worthwhile.
Sunsets north of the Arctic Circle are hard to beat. Here from the hotel roof terrace.Image: Reto Fehr
In the restaurant, which is closing soon
The lady at the hotel reception greeted me with the words: “Born and raised in Kiruna. If you have any questions, I’ll be happy to help you.” She probably didn’t know then that I was a journalist and that I had a lot of questions. For dinner she recommends OTs Bodega. A meeting place for locals. The restaurant and bar is located on the border road to the ghost district. It is always well filled.
The small black building is OT’s Bodega. The entire area on that side of the street will also have to go in the next five to six years. The photo was snapped on the part of the ghost town.Image: Reto Fehr
I ask the owner if he could stay here. «No, it has been clear for a few months that our neighborhood will also be evacuated. We probably have another five to six years.” And how is he doing? “What should I do? That’s just how it is.” He says it like he’s reading the lottery numbers. I don’t know whether I should be happy that he – and so many of the people here – see it so pragmatically or whether I should be sad that they say goodbye to their old life, their old buildings, their old homeland so emotionlessly.
OT’s Bodega.Image: Reto Fehr
No matter whether in a hotel, shopping, on the train or in a restaurant. Sooner or later the conversation ends up with the city that is moving. Everyone is affected and knows someone who had to leave their house. So did the taxi driver on the way to the airport. He already lives in the new part. He is originally from Pakistan and his English is not great. He keeps it short: “Old Town: finish.”
The sun of “spring winter” slowly sets and bathes the scenery in a wonderful light. Kiruna has been named European Capital of Culture 2029. What kind of city will visitors find here?