page_title: Sauna
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Sauna / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Latvian bathhouse with a pond built in 1862 at "Spirēni", Nīca, Kurzeme, currently located at the Latvian Ethnographic Open Air Museum Latviešu: 1862. gadā celta latviešu pirts ar dīķi no Kurzemes novada Nīcas „Spirēniem”, Latvijas Etnogrāfiskais brīvdabas muzejs Čeština: Lotyšské etnografické muzeum v přírodě: Lázeňský domek a rybníček, oblast Kurzeme, Nīca, "Spirēni", postaven roku 1862
context_page_description: A sauna, or sudatory, is a small room or building designed as a place to experience dry or wet heat sessions, or an establishment with one or more of these facilities. The steam and high heat make the bathers perspire. Infrared therapy is often referred to as a type of sauna, but according to the Finnish sauna organisations, infrared is not a sauna.
  Tampere, the third largest city of Finland, has been officially declared the "Sauna Capital of the World".
context_section_description: The oldest-known saunas in Finland were made from pits dug in a slope in the ground and primarily used as dwellings in winter. The sauna featured a fireplace where stones were heated to a high temperature. Water was thrown on the hot stones to produce steam and to give a sensation of increased heat. This would raise the apparent temperature so high that people could take off their clothes. The first Finnish saunas are what nowadays are called savusaunas, or smoke saunas. These differed from present-day saunas in that they were heated by heating a pile of rocks called kiuas by burning large amounts of wood about 6 to 8 hours and then letting the smoke out before enjoying the löyly, or sauna heat. A properly heated "savusauna" gives heat up to 12 hours.
  As a result of the Industrial Revolution, the sauna evolved to use a metal woodstove, or kiuas [ˈkiu.ɑs], with a chimney. Air temperatures averaged around 75–100 °C (167–212 °F) but sometimes exceeded 110 °C (230 °F) in a traditional Finnish sauna. When the Finns migrated to other areas of the globe they brought their sauna designs and traditions with them. This led to further evolution of the sauna, including the electric sauna stove, which was introduced in 1938 by Metos Ltd in Vaasa. Although the culture of sauna nowadays is more or less related to Finnish culture, the evolution of sauna happened around the same time both in Finland and the Baltic countries sharing the same meaning and importance of sauna in daily life, shared still to this day. The Sauna became very popular especially in Scandinavia and the German speaking regions of Europe after the Second World War. German soldiers had experienced Finnish saunas during their fight against the Soviet Union on the Soviet-Finnish front of WWII, where they fought on the same side. Saunas were so important to Finnish soldiers that they built saunas not only in mobile tents, but even in bunkers. After the war, the German soldiers brought the habit back to Germany and Austria, where it became popular in the second half of the 20th century. The German sauna culture also became popular in neighbouring countries such as Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
  Archaeological sites in Greenland and Newfoundland have uncovered structures very similar to traditional Scandinavian farm saunas, some with bathing platforms and "enormous quantities of badly scorched stones".
  Areas of the Nordic diaspora, such as the rocky shores of the Orkney islands of Scotland, have many stone structures for normal habitation, some of which incorporate areas for fire and bathing. It is possible some of these structures also incorporated the use of steam, in a way similar to the sauna, but this is a matter of speculation. The sites are from the Neolithic age, dating to approximately 4000 B.C.E.
  The traditional Korean sauna, called the hanjeungmak, is a domed structure constructed of stone that was first mentioned in the Sejong Sillok of the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty in the 15th century. Supported by Sejong the Great, the hanjeungmak was touted for its health benefits and used to treat illnesses. In the early 15th century, Buddhist monks maintained hanjeungmak clinics, called hanjeungso, to treat sick poor people; these clinics maintained separate facilities for men and women due to high demand. Korean sauna culture and kiln saunas are still popular today, and Korean saunas are ubiquitous.
caption: Traditional Latvian sauna from Spirēni, Nīca, Courland built in 1862, currently located at The Ethnographic Open-Air Museum of Latvia
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