Help Santa to work remotely – where to locate in 2021?

Help Santa! To reduce his transit times and emissions – reindeers burn a lot of (green) fuel – and find an optimal remote workplace from where to deliver gifts to all the children in the Nordic Region!

Santa has heard about this new trend “multilocational lifestyle” and he would like to know if this would suit him as well. But where to move? Santa’s little researchers have worked hard this year and done some mapping for him – and discovered places you have never even heard of!

If Santa is to serve all children (0-14 years old) throughout the Nordic Region from a single address, the solution lies in Storfors Municipality. WHERE? – you might think. It is a real place, in Central-Southern Sweden. Here Santa has an average distance of 425 km distance to each child from his own backyard. This still sounds like awfully many kilometers. Could he be even more multilocal – with a home in each of the Nordic countries? This would help him to reduce his overall commuting to work significantly.

Let’s try it! If he serves all 4.974 children in Åland from a residence (like a luxury hotel with all-inclusive and pets allowed) in Jomala Municipality, he will only have to travel 11 km to work on average. In Greenland, the distances are somewhat larger, and Santa, even with the most optimal location from a residence (a cabin) in Qeqqata Municipality would have to travel 288 km to each of the 11,748 children in the country.

Can you guess what the other optimal locations would be in the Nordics? I bet you can’t so I will tell you: it’s the municipalities of Hallsberg in Sweden, Jämsä in Finland, Etnedal in Norway, Kalundborg in Denmark, Kjósarhreppur in Iceland and Tórshavn in Faroe Islands. Well, Santa will keep busy all day and night with or without the logistical optimization.

This was just some researchers doing research – But you know better than that!

Where does Santa actually live: Greenland, Finland, Sweden or…? Nordregio has set up a survey where you can tell us where you believe Santa lives and see what others think. Check out the links below.

Let us know where you think Santa lives.

And see where others think Santa lives.

See the optimal place of residence on the map and get the numbers in the table below.

Workplace	Children (0-14 years)	Optimal place of residence (municipality)	Average distance (km)
Nordic Region	4.660.704	Storfors (SE)	425
Sweden	1.837.789	Hallsberg	228
Denmark	948.784	Kalundborg	98
Norway	921.591	Etnedal	258
Finland	855.887	Jämsä	185
Iceland	68.989	Kjósarhreppur	75
Greenland	11.748	Qeqqata	288
Faroe Islands	10.933	Tórshavn	13
Åland	4.974	Jomala	11

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM NORDREGIO!