Helsinki

Helsinki (Swedish, Helsingfors), capital city, and chief seaport of Finland. The city is located in Etelä Province in southern Finland, on a small peninsula extending into the Gulf of Finland. Small islands fringe the peninsula, and the entrance to Helsinki harbour is protected by the fortifications of Suomenlinna (Swedish, Sveaborg), covering seven of the islands. Helsinki is the cultural, commercial, and political centre of Finland. Population 564,521 (2006 estimate).

The principal goods manufactured in Helsinki include paper, textiles, liquor, china, chemicals, and metal goods; agricultural and dairy produce and timber are also exported in considerable quantity. A major part of the commercial activity is centred on the harbour, in which separate facilities are maintained for passengers and small cargoes, for bulk shipping of timber, and for handling large incoming cargoes of coal and grain. The port can accommodate vessels of all kinds, but is icebound from January to May, except for one channel kept clear by ice-breakers. Helsinki also has an international airport at Vantaa.

The city is laid out with spacious streets interspersed with many gardens and parks. Architecturally, Helsinki is a mixture of styles, with the old senate house, the Suurkirkko (Great Church), and the Tuomiokirkko, or Lutheran Cathedral, representing the older buildings, and the railway station, designed in 1918 by Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen, as a contrasting example of early 20th-century architecture. Other points of interest include the Jean Sibelius Monument, the Uspensky Cathedral, the Ataneum Art Museum, the Mannerheim Museum, the Sports Museum and Olympic Stadium (built for the 1952 Games), and Helsinki's islands, with a zoo and amusement park. The waterside focus of the city centre is the Kauppatori or Market Square. A short ferry journey from here takes you to the 18th-century Suomenlinna fortifications, designed to protect the city against invasion from the east, which were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1991. The University of Helsinki has been in the city since 1828, when it was moved from Turku, where it had been founded in 1640. The National Museum of Finland, the Finnish National Opera, the modernistic Finlandia Hall (designed by Finland’s most famous architect Alvar Aalto), and several theatres that stage works in both Finnish and Swedish, are located in the city.

The city was founded by Gustav I Vasa, king of Sweden, in 1550 on a site some distance inland from its present location, to which it was moved in 1640. In 1713, during the Northern War (1700-1721) between Russia and Sweden, the city was destroyed by a retreating Swedish force; the present fortifications were begun in 1729. Finland was incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1809, and Helsinki was made the administrative capital of the Grand Duchy of Finland in 1812; since 1917 the city has been the capital of the Finnish Republic. Several international agreements (Helsinki Accords) were settled here in the 1970s and 1980s by the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. The first American-Soviet summit took place in Helsinki in 1990. The city celebrated its 450th anniversary in 2000, when it was designated a European City of Culture.