What is "falun"

Falun is a city and the seat of Falun Municipality in Dalarna County, Sweden, with 37,291 inhabitants in 2010. It is also the capital of Dalarna County. Falun forms, together with Borlänge, a metropolitan area with close to 100,000 inhabitants.

Falun was originally famous for its copper mine, and is today an important service and industrial city even though the mine is closed (since 1992).

Faluån is a river, flowing through the city, separating it into two sides. Falu copper mine is located on one of the sides which during many centuries was one of Sweden's main business. This side of the river was usually called "the mining side", where not many plants grew due to the toxic smoke which contaminated the soil. On the other side of the river, where the smoke did not reach, sets a large number of beautiful, large villas, which made this side to be called "the delightful side". The center of Falun consist of classical pedestrian streets with small shops. in 1998, the city reclaimed the award of "the city center of the year" in Sweden.

The year 2001, the city, the copper mine and mining areas of Falun were added to the list of world heritage sites by the United Nations, which means that the city is worth preserving, as it is considered to be of interest for all of humanity. Dalarna University, with its 18 000 students, has a campus located in Falun - close to the national ski stadium where the ski world championship has taken place a number of times, including the last one in 2015.

Known trademarks from Falun are Falu rödfärg, Falu rågrut, Falu ättika and Falukorv.

Falun is a city in Sweden.

Falun may also refer to:

Places:

• Falun Municipality, a municipality in Sweden, its seat is the city of Falun
• Falun, Alberta
• Falun, Kansas
• Falun, Wisconsin
• Falun Township (disambiguation)

Other uses

• Falun Gong, a spiritual qigong practice

The Falun symbol pictured is used as an emblem by the Falun Gong spiritual group. The term translates literally as "law wheel." Other representations of the Falun (dharma wheel, or Dharmacakra in Sanskrit) are utilized in other Buddhist traditions. In Buddhism, the Dharmacakra represents the completeness of the doctrine. To "turn the wheel of dharma" (Zhuan Falun) means to preach the Buddhist doctrine, and is the title of Falun Gong's main text.

Despite the invocation of Buddhist language and symbols, the law wheel as understood in Falun Gong has distinct connotations, and is held to represent the universe. It is conceptualized by an emblem consisting of one large and four small Swastika symbols, representing the Buddha, and four small Taiji (yin-yang) symbols of the Daoist tradition.