The sauna, an emblem of Finnish culture

The sauna is an integral part of Finnish culture. There are 2 to 3 million saunas in Finland for 5.4 million inhabitants. There are communal saunas in almost every building, designer saunas in the capital, on top of the Lappish cable cars, self-service saunas for the homeless or in the VIP boxes of hockey stadiums. Even the Parliament in Helsinki has its own sauna! It is such an institution that the Finns are trying to have the sauna declared a unesco World Heritage Site.