42 Fun Facts About Saunas

An old Finnish saying tells you to behave in the sauna as you would in which place?

In church: folk belief held that a sauna elf, the saunatonttu, loved peace and punished bathers who were noisy or quarrelled.

What is the Finnish word for the steam and heat produced when water is thrown on the hot stones?

Löyly means more than steam: in old Finnish belief the vapour rising from the stones was a spirit, the breath of life.

In sauna vocabulary, what is the kiuas?

The stove and its rock pile: water thrown on its hot stones turns to steam, which makes the room feel much hotter.

The vihta, a bundle of twigs Finns use to gently beat their skin in the sauna, comes from which tree?

Birch: slapping the skin with the leafy whisk stimulates it, and eastern Finns call the same bundle a vasta.

What type were the first Finnish saunas, which took hours to heat before anyone could bathe?

Smoke sauna: with no chimney, smoke fills the room, so the fire is put out and the room aired before anyone bathes.

After a winter sauna, some Finns take a dip in an avanto; what is an avanto?

A hole cut in lake ice: after the plunge, bathers head back into the hot room and repeat the cycle.

Finland has about 5.5 million people; roughly how many saunas does it have?

About 3 million, roughly one for every two Finns, and so woven into life that many older Finns were even born in a sauna.

Which day of the week is the traditional sauna day in Finland?

Saturday was sauna day, but at summer cottages many Finns bathe far more often.

In the Primary Chronicle, which apostle marvels at Slavs lashing themselves in scorching bathhouses?

Andrew: he said they then drenched themselves in cold water, and so revived.

Helsinki has a sauna built into one of the gondolas of what?

A Ferris wheel: SkyWheel Helsinki's wood-panelled SkySauna gondola seats up to five, and climate-controlled cabins let the wheel turn all year.

Which Finnish city is known as the 'Sauna Capital of the World'?

Tampere: it earned the title with the most public saunas in Finland, among them Rajaportti, the country's oldest working public sauna.

According to Herodotus, which people threw hemp seeds onto red-hot stones to make a vapour bath?

Scythians: Herodotus says they howled with delight, and used this vapour bath instead of washing their bodies in water.

The Koi Sauna in Sinsheim, listed by Guinness in 2014 as the world's largest sauna, is in which country?

Germany: mixed-sex, swimsuit-free saunas are the norm there, a habit rare in southern Europe.

Russian peasants with no banya at hand sometimes steamed themselves inside what?

A cooking oven: once it had been fired, straw was laid on its floor and the bather crawled inside.

What is the sauna ritual, led by a Saunameister, of pouring water on the stones and fanning the heat with a towel?

Aufguss: the burst of heat bathers feel comes from the steam condensing on their skin and releasing its heat.

Why can people tolerate sauna air of 100 °C?

The humidity is kept low, so the air, walls and benches stay above the dew point and remain dry.

What do Westerners often call the hammam, the traditional public steam bath?

A Turkish bath: yet the Victorian 'Turkish baths' built in Britain made bathers sweat in hot dry air rather than steam.

Why does the higher bench in a sauna feel hotter?

Hot air rises, so bathers who want more heat climb to the top bench, near the ceiling, where fresh steam reaches them quickly.

Why did Heinola's World Sauna Championships, held yearly since 1999, end after the 2010 contest?

A finalist died: Russia's Vladimir Ladyzhensky collapsed after six minutes at 110 °C, and Finland's five-time champion was badly burned.

What kind of stove heats most saunas in Finnish city apartment blocks?

Electric: it needs no open fire in a block of flats, and a delay timer can have the sauna hot when bathers want it.

In a Russian banya, what is the predbannik?

Changing room: bathers undress there and come back between steam sessions to rest and drink tea.

In the Primary Chronicle, which ruler had a bathhouse locked and set on fire to kill a Drevlian delegation?

Olga of Kiev was avenging her husband Igor, killed by the Drevlians, who then sent envoys proposing she marry their prince.

The hammam, the steam bath of the Middle East and North Africa, was inherited from which civilisation's public baths?

Roman: like the thermae, the hammam served social life as well as washing, meeting everyday hygiene needs in an era before private plumbing.

Why do hammam bathers traditionally wash with running water instead of immersing themselves in a pool?

Islamic custom favours it, yet Iran's hammams long had basins where bathers immersed themselves for the full ablution.

The temazcal, a permanent domed sweat lodge of Mesoamerica, takes its name from which language?

Nahuatl, the Aztecs' language: they used the temazcal as a rite of purification, and it is still used for healing in parts of Mexico.

The Lakota sweat lodge ceremony, the inipi, comes from which Native American cultural region?

Plains: inside the lodge, participants pray and sing around a pit of heated stones.

Besides kiln saunas and baths, what do many Korean jjimjilbang bathhouses let guests do?

Sleep overnight: communal sleeping areas make them a budget place to stay, and men out late drinking sometimes sleep there.

Korea's domed stone kiln sauna, the hanjeungmak, was first recorded in the 15th century under which king?

Sejong the Great's annals record kiln saunas used to treat illness.

Archaeologists think a Bronze Age building found on which Scottish islands may have been a sauna?

Orkney: the site is likely a burnt mound, where fire-heated stones and a water tank would have made steam.

Colonists of New Sweden, many of them Finns, built saunas along which American river?

Delaware: New Sweden's settlers are also credited with bringing the log cabin to America.

Thanks to Finnish Americans, which US region had the strongest sauna culture as of 2025?

Around Lake Superior: many Finns came to Michigan's Upper Peninsula to work in its iron and copper mines.

Who invented the radiant-heat light bath, the ancestor of the infrared sauna, in 1891?

John Harvey Kellogg claimed the bath stimulated healing, and he showed it off at Chicago's 1893 World's Fair.

In 1977 the US National Federation of State High School Associations banned which item, after wrestlers used it for dangerous rapid weight loss?

Several college wrestlers died in 1997 while cutting weight in the waterproof garments.

Frequent Finnish-style sauna use, four to seven times a week, is associated with a decreased risk of which conditions?

Alzheimer's disease and stroke: in the same Finnish cohort, men who were both fit and frequent bathers had the lowest risk of sudden cardiac death.

Besides bathing, what else were old Finnish and Swedish sauna buildings used for?

Drying malt and flax: the same hot room was also used to cure meat and wash clothes.

In Japan's public bathhouses and sports centres, what are the usual rules for the sauna?

Gender separated and nudity required: many old sento added saunas to survive once most homes had their own baths after the war.

What is the everyday Swedish word for a sauna?

Bastu, short for badstuga, 'bath cabin': town bathhouses once thrived across Central Europe, but most had closed by the late 1600s.

In Slavic folklore, what might the bannik, the bathhouse spirit, do to an intruder?

Pour boiling water on them: to keep him content, bathers left the bannik soap and saved a late round of steam for him alone.

What is the Russian name for the leafy bundle of twigs used to massage fellow bathers in a banya?

Venik: the dried bundle is soaked in very hot water before use, and waving it over a bather drives hot air onto the skin.

According to Vitruvius, how was the heat of a domed sweating room in ancient baths adjusted?

A bronze disc on chains: Vitruvius says it hung from an opening in the dome, and raising or lowering it set the temperature.

The Võromaa sauna tradition, listed by UNESCO in 2014, belongs to which country?

Estonia: for the Võro people, the sauna is a place of ritual cleansing for both body and soul.

What happened to most traditional public saunas in Finnish cities after the 1950s?

They almost disappeared, though by 2020 private initiatives were building new public saunas again.