Guru

seventeen

Runaway Halo

Você

Helsinki - Jäämeren Heijastuksii

Helsinki is the capital of Finland. It lies in the Uusimaa region in the south of the country, on the coast of the Gulf of Finland, and is the northernmost capital of an EU member state. With 684,018 inhabitants (as of December 31, 2024), Helsinki is by far the largest city in Finland and the third largest in the Nordic countries, after Stockholm and Oslo.

Together with the neighboring cities of Espoo, Vantaa, and Kauniainen, it forms the so-called Helsinki Metropolitan Region, a conurbation with approximately 1.49 million inhabitants, making it the northernmost metropolitan area in the world with over one million inhabitants. Helsinki is the political, economic, scientific, and cultural center of Finland. Around six percent of Helsinki's inhabitants are Swedish-speaking; officially, the city is bilingual.

Helsinki is located 80 km north of Tallinn, Estonia, 400 km east of Stockholm, Sweden, and 300 km west of Saint Petersburg, Russia. It has close historical ties to these three cities.

The city was founded in 1550 under the Swedish name Helsinge fors during Swedish rule, but remained insignificant for a long time. Shortly after Finland came under Russian rule, Helsingfors was designated the capital of the newly formed Grand Duchy of Finland in 1812, replacing Turku (Åbo) as the country's most important city. The official use of the Finnishized name Helsinki did not begin until 1819.

Since 1917, Helsinki has been the capital of independent Finland.

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