Arctic Circle (18,148). Rovaniemi (61,329) in Finland is the largest settlement in the immediate vicinity of the Arctic Circle, lying south of the line. In contrast, the largest North American community north of the Arctic Circle, Sisimiut (Greenland), has approximately 5,000 inhabitants. Of the Canadian and American Arctic communities, Utqiagvik, Alaska is the largest settlement with about 4,000 inhabitants. The Arctic Circle is roughly . The area north of the Circle is about and covers roughly 4% of Earth's surface. The Arctic Circle passes through the Arctic Ocean, the Scandinavian Peninsula, North Asia, Northern America and Greenland. The land within the Arctic
Inari Ōkami worship of Inari is known to have existed as of 711 AD, the official founding date of the shrine at Inari Mountain in Fushimi, Kyoto. Scholars such as Kazuo Higo believe worship was conducted for centuries before that date; they suggest that the Hata clan began the formal worship of Inari as an agriculture "kami" in the late fifth century. The name Inari does not appear in classical Japanese mythology. By the Heian period, Inari worship began to spread. In 823 AD, after Emperor Saga presented the Tō-ji temple to Kūkai, the founder of the Shingon Buddhist sect, the latter