Virrat

Virrat (Virdois) is a town and municipality of Finland. It is part of the Pirkanmaa region, and it is located 104 km north of Tampere and 113 km west of Jyväskylä. The distance between Virrat and Helsinki is 285 km. 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. The municipality is unilingually Finnish.

The town grew rapidly in the middle years of the twentieth century, and by 1950 the population reached more than 12,000. Virrat acquired town status in 1977, although it had received the right to hold markets three years earlier, in 1974. More recently the population level has been adversely impacted by the drift of employment opportunities and people to the larger towns. Apart from the town of Virrat itself, the administratively defined municipality is largely rural, and includes the villages of Äijänneva, Härkönen Jäähdyspohja, Killinkoski, Koro, Kotala, Kurjenkylä, Liedenpohja, Ohtola, Vaskuu, and Vaskivesi.

Major lakes in the area are Lake Toisvesi, beside which the town of Virrat is located, and Lake Tarjanne at the border of the municipalities of Virrat, Mänttä-Vilppula, and Ruovesi.

Virrat crater on Mars is named after it.

Climate
Virrat has a subarctic climate (Dfc). Diurnal air temperature variation is higher than in other parts of Pirkanmaa.

Notable people

 * Seppo Hovinen (born 1951), a Finnish javelin thrower
 * I. K. Inha (1865–1930), a Finnish photographer, author, translator, and journalist
 * Antti Lieroinen (?–1643), a famous Finnish cunning man and death-sentenced for witchcraft
 * Vesa Rantanen (born 1975), a Finnish pole vaulter
 * Tom Sukanen (1873–1943), a Finnish-born Canadian sailor and farmer