Arktikum, on the Arctic Circle near Rovaniemi, is a museum, science center, and congress and conference palace.

Arktikum opened to the public on December 6, 1992, when the 75th anniversary of Finland's independence was celebrated. The Arktikum building was designed by a group of Danish architects Birch-Bonderup & Thorup-Waade. The new half-arch building was built in 1997 by architects Bonderup and Lehtipalo. The most visible part of the building, the glass pipe, is 172 meters long and is crossed by a 30-meter-wide highway to Kittila. The glass tunnel serves as a kind of “entrance to the north”, because the entrance to Arktikum is located on the south side, and visitors entering the building go in a northerly direction. The exhibitions are located underground like northern animals hiding from the arctic winter under a layer of snow.

There are two different entities operating in the Arktikum building:
Arctic Center and Regional Museum of Lapland. The Arctic Center of the University of Lapland is a Finnish and international center of Arctic know-how. The Regional Museum of Lapland acts as a specialist in matters relating to the culture, prehistory, building traditions and nature of Lapland.