ulation had risen to 14,634, but it fell by around 2000 the next year through the detachment of the villages and Posio Suolijärvi Kuusamo .
At the start of the Winter War Kuusamo was evacuated in December 1939 for fear of a Soviet invasion. In the Moscow Peace Treaty, the Winter War ended on 14 March 1940, Finland lost large parts of Karelia, the eastern areas of Salla and Kuusamo to the Soviet Union. The ceded part of Kuusamo had an area of 1653 square kilometers and included the villages Paanajärvi, Tavajärvi, Vatajärvi, Enojärvi, Pukari and Kenttikylä. Its 2100 residents were relocated to other parts of Kuusamo. During the Continuation War of 1941-1944 Kuusamo was used as a supply depot by German and Finnish troops. When it appeared that Germany might lose the war, Finland secretly negotiated a separate peace with the Soviet Union. After news of the armistice, the civilian population once again abandoned the town for fear of Russian occupation. The Russians did briefly occupy Kuusamo and burned the village to the ground upon their departure.[This part is untrue, the town of Kuusamo was actually burned down by retreating German troops after the Continuation War when Finland signed peace treaty with the Soviet Union. One of the requirements on the treaty was the removal of any and all German troops currently on Finnish soil, which escalated in to a minor separate war commonly known as the Lapland war between the Finns and the Germans]
In the years between 1945–1952 Kuusamo was rebuilt. By the late 1960s, the population grew to almost 21,000. As agriculture in the village could not offer enough jobs for the baby boomer generation, the population began to decline rapidly. In 1954, the first ski run on the Rukatunturi was created. Through the expansion of the Ruka ski center, Kuusamo became a tourist center. In 2000, the municipality of Kuusamo was made a town
