Alavus

Alavus (Alavo) is a town and municipality of Finland. It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Southern Ostrobothnia region, 52 km southeast of Seinäjoki, 138 km north of Tampere and 319 km north of Helsinki. The town has a population of 0 and covers an area of undefined km2 of which undefined km2 is water. The population density is undefined PD/km2. Neighbouring municipalities are Alajärvi, Kuortane, Seinäjoki, Virrat and Ähtäri.

Agriculture and forestry employ a significant share of the population. Most of the industry in Alavus is related to construction: materials, design and contractors. Alavus has 60 lakes with 324 km of shoreline. The town is unilingually Finnish.

Villages
In 1967, Alavus had five legally recognized villages (henkikirjakylät):
 * Alavus
 * Rantatöysä
 * Sapsalampi
 * Sulkava
 * Sydänmaa

Demographics
In 2020, 16.7% of the population of Alavus was under the age of 15, 54.6% were aged 15 to 64, and 28.7% were over the age of 64. The average age was 46.1, above the national average of 43.4 and regional average of 44.7. Speakers of Finnish made up 98.3% of the population and speakers of Swedish made up 0.1%, while the share of speakers of foreign languages was 1.6%. Foreign nationals made up 1.2% of the total population.

The chart below, describing the development of the total population of Alavus from 1975 to 2020, encompasses the municipality's area as of 2021.

Urban areas
In 2019, out of the total population of 6,919, 4,485 people lived in urban areas and 3,641 in sparsely populated areas, while the coordinates of 64 people were unknown. This made Alavus's degree of urbanization 60.7%. The urban population in the municipality was divided between three urban areas as follows:

Economy
In 2018, 9.1% of the workforce of Alavus worked in primary production (agriculture, forestry and fishing), 24.0% in secondary production (e.g. manufacturing, construction and infrastructure), and 65.6% in services. In 2019, the unemployment rate was 8.5%, and the share of pensioners in the population was 33.0%.

The ten largest employers in Alavus in 2019 were as follows: • # Kuusiolinna Terveys Oy, 551 employees

• # Town of Alavus, 518 employees

• # Veljekset Keskinen Oy, 346 employees

• # Alavus Ikkunat Oy, 100 employees

• # Riikku Group Oy, 96 employees

• # Mattiovi Oy, 90 employees

• # Etelä-Pohjanmaan Osuuskauppa, 64 employees

• # Kuusiokuntien sosiaali -ja terveyskuntayhtymä, 58 employees

• # Normek Oy, 56 employees

• # Alavuden Betoni Oy, 52 employees

Notable people

 * Mimmi Bähr (1844–1923), Finnish inventor and developer of calligraphy.
 * Erkki Huttunen (1901–1956), architect
 * Rauha S. Virtanen (1931–2019), author