 Its summers are very mild for a coastal location so far north, and winters are normally not extremely cold in spite of the relative proximity to the Arctic Circle.Haparanda has strong connections to Tornio and the Finnish side of the river and bilingualism of Swedish and Finnish is common although Swedish is the sole official language and the mother tongue of a vast majority of inhabitants.In 2010, it was estimated that 70 % of Haparanda's inhabitants spoke Finnish as a second language.