Location
Sydänmaa is in the municipality of Kärsämäki and is a part of the centre point area of Finland. The village is between the wilderness of Ostrobothnia and Savo. Sydänmaa is located near the main national highway, Highway 4. The city of Oulu is 150 kilometres away in the north and the distance to Helsinki is about 500 kilometres, which is a six hours drive by car.
Nature
Nature is the essential thing in the Sydänmaa. It offers recreation, different scenes, berries, mushrooms, and game. The swamp conservation area of the Kärsämäki Lake and the Iso-Lamujärvi Lake offer a versatile picture of the areas plants and animals. There are about 11000 hectares of forest area.
Village History and Present
Settlers from Savo came to the wilderness area in 1630. In the beginning of the 1900’s, the village still lived in a time of nature healers and soothsayers. Tar and burning coal log piles has been part of the village’s history. The village’s best times were when the forest work was done by man and horse power. In the 1960’s the general phenomena of industrialisation and urbanisation started and the population of the village decreased by 250 to about 100 persons in the 1970’s.
In 1996 the village school was closed. However, the energy of the village was brought together again. A village committee was established from different associations in 1997. The village co-operative was established in 1999 and today it owns the Kyläkeskus Syke, village centre. The Syke (engl. heartbeat) operates as a gathering place for the villagers. The services of Syke include accommodation and a charter restaurant.
Agriculture still provides a notable share of the income in the village. The village has 11 active farms, which produce milk and beef. About 500 hectares of fields grow crops, of which more than half are currently organically grown. Part of the farmer’s income is from the sale of timber. About a third of the work aged people work on the nearby towns.
 
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