There’s no inventor’s name for the sauna, and no first year. What the record does have is a set of dated milestones that trace how a smoke-filled washhouse became a plug-in cabin.
This timeline uses only dated, sourced events and leaves out the rest. For choosing a modern sauna, see the home sauna buying guide.
Short answer: nobody invented the sauna. It began as the chimneyless smoke sauna in Finland, a tradition described as thousands of years old. Dated milestones start later: the Finnish Sauna Society in 1937, Harvia’s first heaters for sale in the mid-1950s, electric heaters at Harvia from the end of the 1980s, infrared Waon therapy trials in Japan by 2008, and UNESCO heritage status in 2020.
The timeline
| When | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Thousands of years ago | Sauna bathing becomes a tradition in Finland | Mayo Clinic Proceedings review, 2018 |
| Before chimneys | The smoke sauna, “the original sauna” | thisisFINLAND |
| 16 November 1937 | The Finnish Sauna Society is founded as Suomalaisen saunan ystävät | Finnish Sauna Society |
| About 1947 | The society gets its own sauna by Humallahti Bay in Helsinki, “after the first decade” | Finnish Sauna Society |
| 1950 | Tapani Harvia makes the first Harvia wood-burning heaters, for family and friends | Harvia |
| 1952 | The society’s Vaskiniemi centre opens, with four chimneyless saunas | Finnish Sauna Society |
| Mid-1950s | Harvia makes its first heaters for sale | Harvia |
| After the 1950s | Traditional public saunas in Finnish cities almost disappear | UNESCO |
| Early 1970s | Harvia moves to Muurame and builds a factory | Harvia |
| End of the 1980s | Harvia adds electric heaters to its wood-burning range | Harvia |
| 1984 to 1989 | Baseline exams for the Kuopio sauna study in eastern Finland | Laukkanen, 2017 |
| 2008 | A multicenter trial of Waon therapy, a far-infrared sauna treatment, is published in Japan | Miyata, Journal of Cardiology, 2008 |
| 2015 | JAMA Internal Medicine publishes the Kuopio study on sauna use and heart deaths | Laukkanen, 2015 |
| 2018 | Harvia lists on the Helsinki Stock Exchange | Harvia |
| 2020 | UNESCO inscribes “Sauna culture in Finland” | UNESCO |
The smoke sauna
thisisFINLAND calls the smoke sauna “the original sauna.” Wood burns in a stove with no chimney until the fire dies and the smoke clears, leaving the embers to heat the room. It adds that saunas were once the most practical place to wash during long winters without hot running water.
1937: the society of sauna doctors
The Finnish Sauna Society says it was founded on 16 November 1937 by “nationalistic physicians whose goal was to study the sauna and its effects.” Its Vaskiniemi centre in Helsinki, completed in the Olympic year of 1952, still has four chimneyless saunas.
1950s to 1980s: the stove makers
Harvia says its founder, Tapani Harvia, made the first wood-burning Harvia heaters for his family and friends in 1950, and that its first heaters for sale were made in the mid-1950s. Through the 1970s, its range was wood-burning only. In the early 1970s it moved to Muurame in Central Finland and built a new factory.
The electric heater
Harvia’s history says demand for electric heaters grew in the 1980s with urbanization in Finland, and that it began making electric sauna heaters “alongside woodburning heaters” at the end of that decade. That is one maker’s date, not the first electric heater anywhere; the sources here don’t give that.
Here’s what the spec sheet won’t tell you. The smoke sauna didn’t disappear when electric and infrared heat arrived; UNESCO’s description still lists it alongside them.
Infrared and the research era
By 2008, researchers in Japan were publishing multicenter trials of Waon therapy, 15 minutes in a far-infrared sauna at 60°C followed by rest under a blanket. In Finland, the Kuopio study, with baseline exams from 1984 to 1989, produced the 2015 JAMA Internal Medicine paper by Laukkanen linking frequent sauna use with fewer fatal heart events in men.
2020: world heritage
UNESCO inscribed “Sauna culture in Finland” on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2020. Its description counts 3.3 million saunas in a country of 5.5 million people, and lists electric, wood-heated, smoke, and infrared saunas with no hierarchy among them.
What a modern home sauna looks like
| Type | Example | Heat | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barrel, wood or electric | Almost Heaven Grandview | Electric, or an M3 wood-burning kit | $6,358 |
| Electric barrel | Almost Heaven Salem | 6kW electric heater | $4,176 |
| Infrared cabin | Dynamic Andora | 6 far-infrared carbon panels | $2,210.99 |
Prices from Select Saunas and The Home Depot listings, checked September to October 2026.
My rule of thumb: distrust any history that names a single inventor or a first year. The dated record starts in the 20th century.
Bottom line: the sauna has no inventor. Its dated history runs from a doctors’ society in 1937 through stove makers in the 1950s, electric heaters by the end of the 1980s, infrared trials by 2008, and UNESCO in 2020.
Sources
- Laukkanen JA, Laukkanen T, Kunutsor SK, “Cardiovascular and Other Health Benefits of Sauna Bathing: A Review of the Evidence,” Mayo Clinic Proceedings, August 2018 (abstract): mayoclinicproceedings.org
- thisisFINLAND, “Bare facts of the sauna in Finland,” accessed October 12, 2026: finland.fi
- Finnish Sauna Society, “The Society’s history,” accessed October 26, 2026: sauna.fi
- Harvia, “Harvia’s story,” accessed October 26, 2026: harviagroup.com
- UNESCO, “Sauna culture in Finland,” Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, inscribed 2020: ich.unesco.org
- Laukkanen T, Kunutsor S, Kauhanen J, Laukkanen JA, “Sauna bathing is inversely associated with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in middle-aged Finnish men,” Age and Ageing, 2017;46:245-249 (abstract): pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Miyata M et al., “Beneficial effects of Waon therapy on patients with chronic heart failure: results of a prospective multicenter study,” Journal of Cardiology, 2008;52:79-85 (abstract): pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Laukkanen T, Khan H, Zaccardi F, Laukkanen JA, “Association Between Sauna Bathing and Fatal Cardiovascular and All-Cause Mortality Events,” JAMA Internal Medicine, 2015;175(4):542-548: jamanetwork.com
- Almost Heaven and Dynamic Saunas listings (heater options, price), checked September and October 2026