Sotkamo is a municipality of Finland, located in the Kainuu region about 40 kilometres (25 mi) east of Kajaani, the capital of Kainuu. Vuokatti, in west of Sotkamo, is the most populous village in the municipality and also a popular skiing resort. Both Hiidenportti National Park and Tiilikkajärvi National Park are located in the municipality.

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Finnish. (June 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Finnish Wikipedia article at [[:fi:Sotkamo]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|fi|Sotkamo}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

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Sotkamo
Municipality
Sotkamon kunta Sotkamo kommun
Coat of arms
Location of Sotkamo in Finland
Coordinates: 64°08′N 028°23′E
Country	Finland
Region	Kainuu
Sub-region	Kajaani
Government
• Municipality manager	Mika Kilpeläinen
Area  (2018-01-01)[1]
• Total	2,951.86 km2 (1,139.72 sq mi)
• Land	2,648.88 km2 (1,022.74 sq mi)
• Water	302.61 km2 (116.84 sq mi)
• Rank	20th largest in Finland
Population  (2023-12-31)[2]
• Total	10,275
• Rank	95th largest in Finland
• Density	3.88/km2 (10.0/sq mi)
Population by native language [3]
• Finnish	95.5% (official)
• Swedish	0.2%
• Others	4.3%
Population by age [4]
• 0 to 14	14.9%
• 15 to 64	58%
• 65 or older	27.1%
Time zone	UTC+02:00 (EET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+03:00 (EEST)
Website	www.sotkamo.fi/en/

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The municipality has a population of 10,275 (31 December 2023)^[2] and covers an area of 2,951.86 square kilometres (1,139.72 sq mi) of which 302.61 km² (116.84 sq mi) is water.^[1] The population density is 3.88 inhabitants per square kilometre (10.0/sq mi).

In sports, Sotkamo is known for its pesäpallo team, Sotkamon Jymy. The Hiukka Stadium is the home field of Sotkamon Jymy,^[5] and its well-known competitor is Vimpelin Veto from Vimpeli, known as long-time arch-enemy of Sotkamon Jymy.^[6]

One of the major landmarks of Sotkamo is the sandy beach of Hiukka, which locates by the lake Iso Sapsojärvi, just beside the Sotkamo center. In Vuokatti ski center you can find the lake Nuasjärvi and the Vuokatti Hill.

Sotkamo has grown beside a water route formed by a continuous band of lakes and rivers. The waters of the Sotkamo route run through Kajaaninjoki into Oulujärvi and finally to the Baltic Sea, but in the past the waterways also created an important commercial route to White Sea in the east. The same water route has been used by soldiers of Russia, Sweden and Denmark to rob and ravage this remote countryside for centuries. The name Sotkamo comes either from the Finnish word "sotku" which means a mess and refers to the obscure water route, or from the word "sotka" which was a general name for water birds in ancient Finnish and now designates the common goldeneye.

During the 19th century Sotkamo was visited by notable Finnish artists such as Akseli Gallen-Kallela and Hugo Simberg.

On November 17, 2007 first pictures of the Kern arc were made in the town of Sotkamo by Marko Mikkilä.

Beside tourism, mining is important for the economy of Sotkamo. One of the largest nickel deposits in Europe is located in Talvivaara where the Talvivaara Mining Company started its operation in late 2008. Also Mondo Minerals mines talc in Lahnaslampi.

• Anders Chydenius (1729–1803), Lutheran priest and a member of the Swedish Riksdag
• Kalle Arantola (1913–1940), skier
• Veikko Huovinen (1927–2009), author and forester
• Pirjo Häggman (born 1951), sprinter

• Kuhmo