Mikkeli (Swedish: S:t Michel official writing, short for Sankt Michel) is a town and municipality in Finland. It is located in what used to be the province of Eastern Finland and is part of the Southern Savonia region. The municipality has a population of 54,486 (30 June 2015) (around 34,000 in the town itself) and covers an area of 2,124.60 square kilometres (820.31 sq mi) of which 424.7 km2 (164.0 sq mi) is water.