Lapps

Lapps: see Lapland.

---

Lapps 

(Laplanders; self-designation, Sameh), a people living on the Kola Peninsula in the RSFSR (approximately 1,900 persons; 1970 census) and in northern Norway (approximately 20,000), Sweden (approximately 7,000), and Finland (approximately 2,000). They speak the Lapp language. The Scandinavian Lapps are Lutherans, and the Kola Lapps were formerly members of the Orthodox Church. The Lapps are the indigenous inhabitants of the northern regions of Karelia, Finland, and Scandinavia; they formerly lived in the more southerly regions as well. The traditional occupations of the Lapps are fishing, hunting, and reindeer breeding. In the USSR, some Lapp kolkhozes breed dairy animals, and others engage in fur farming as well.

REFERENCES

Narody zarubezhnoi Evropy, vol. 2. Moscow, 1965.
Narody Evropeiskoi chasti SSSR, vol. 2. Moscow, 1964.
Charnolusskii, V. V. Materialy po bytu loparei. Leningrad, 1930.
Kharuzin, N. N. Russkie lopari. Moscow, 1890.