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> Located well within the Arctic Circle, the bleak, almost unpopulated region around Kiruna

That sentence makes me think of some of the s__t-hole mining cities and towns in and around the Arctic around here in Alaska / Yukon and NWT.

The photos in the article show that by North American standards, it's an extremely beautiful city.

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I think only two of those pictures were actual photographs of the city; the rest were artists' depictions of the new city. Of the two photos, the first is from a great distance, in winter, and could portray a pretty nasty-looking place covered in snow; the second is of wilderness on the outskirts (?) of town, again covered in snow.

No idea if Kiruna is actually a nasty-looking place or not, but it's possible.

Everything looks nice when covered in snow or filmed from far enough away: https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=2...

But more realistically, here's downtown Kiruna today: https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiruna#mediaviewer/File:Kiruna...

You can see for yourself in Google Maps; http://tinyurl.com/jvm8owu

It is a nice city. I'm glad to live here, and it is nothing like some of the cities I've visited in Alaska or Wyoming. It's well planned and a very livable city.

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