Rovaniemi is the Official Hometown of Santa Claus

Rovaniemi in Finland near the Arctic Circle is the official hometown of Santa Claus.

It says so in the Finland's Roveniemi website.

This is because according to the history of Santa Claus ...

"Since the 1950s, Santa has happily sojourned at Napapiiri, near Rovaniemi, at times other than Christmas, to meet children and the young at heart. By 1985 his visits to Napapiiri had become so regular that he established his own Santa Claus Office there."^[1]

In Rovaniemi is Santa's Workshop Village, a tourist location where visitors can meet and have photo taken with Santa Claus year round.

Santa's Claus Village is located right on the Arctic Circle line around 66° 32' 35" latitude as denoted by a white line drawn on the ground of the village.

The Arctic Circle line is the southernmost part of the globe where it is possible to have a 24-hour sun at least one day of the year.

Due to changes in Earth's axial tilt, this latitude changes slightly from year to year.

For year 2012, the arctic circle line is more closer to 66° 33′ 44″.

Although Santa's Workshop Village is at the Arctic Circle, it is still 2648 km to the North Pole as indicated by a sign post in the village.

There are real reindeers at the Santa's Workshop Village. Besides having real reindeers at the Santa Workshop Village, there are art pieces of reindeer in the city of Rovaniemi. See photos of real reindeers and art reindeer.

So perhaps they can help get Santa to the North Pole.

Rovaniemi is the home of Santa Claus' Main Post Office located in Santa's Workshop Village with address as listed here.^[3]

The post office welcomes 300,000 visitor a year, with 70,000 visitors in December alone.

During Christmas, the post office can receive 32,000 letters a day.

After the 2011 Christmas, it has received about 15.5 million letter from 198 countries.

As of 2012, Rovaniemi is also the location of the northernmost branch of McDonald's.