Saimaa highlighted on a satellite photo, Gulf of Finland at the bottom,Lake Ladoga on the right. The black line is the Russo-Finnish border.
The lake was formed byglacial melting at the end of theIce Age. Majortowns on the lakeshore includeLappeenranta,Imatra,Savonlinna,Mikkeli,Varkaus, andJoensuu. About 6,000 years ago, ancient Lake Saimaa, estimated to cover nearly 9,000 km2 (3,500 sq mi) at the time, was abruptly discharged through a new outlet. The event created thousands of square kilometres of new residual wetlands.[3] Following this event, the region saw a population maximum in the decades following only to later return to an ecological development towards old boreal conifer forests which saw a decline in population.[citation needed]
TheVuoksi River flows from Saimaa toLake Ladoga. Most of the lake is dotted with islands, and narrow canals divide the lake in many parts, each having its own name (major basins includeOrivesi,Puruvesi,Haukivesi,Yövesi,Pihlajavesi, andPyhäselkä, among others). The southernmost major basin is sometimes called "Suur-Saimaa", or "Greater Saimaa", but this is not an official name.
Saimaa exhibits all major types of lake in Finland at different levels ofeutrophication.[4]
Finland's Ministry for Foreign Affairs describes the Saimaa basin (an area larger than the lake) as a "maze of detail": according to an English-language statement, the area includes 14,000 islands and "more shoreline here per unit of area than anywhere else in the world, the total length being nearly 15,000 kilometres (9,300 mi)."[5][clarification needed]
Due to its rich, easily accessible asbestos deposits, the shores of the lake are the most probable origin ofasbestos-ceramic, a type of pottery made between c. 1900 BC – 200 AD.
The areas around Saimaa lake are a very popular location for summer cabins as well as lake cruises.
The Russian writerMaxim Gorky went into exile near the shores of Lake Saimaa for a period of time after his apartment was raided by theBlack Hundreds in the aftermath of theMoscow Uprising of 1905. He wrote to his divorced wife Ekaterina, writing "it's beautiful here, like a fairy tale".[7]
^abcd"Suur-Saimaa".Järvi-meriwiki (in Finnish). Finnish Environment Institute. 9 March 2021. Retrieved22 February 2023.[Suur-Saimaan] yhteenlaskettu pinta-ala on 427 946,4 ha ja suurin syvyys 85,81 m. [The total surface area [of Suur-Saimaa] is 427,946.4hectares and its greatest depth is 85.81 meters.]
^Markku Oinonen et al. (2014) Event reconstruction through Bayesian chronology: Massive mid-Holocene lake-burst triggered large-scale ecological and cultural change; url=http://hol.sagepub.com/content/24/11/1419.abstract
