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Vaasa

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For other meanings, see Vaasa (disambiguation).
City of Vaasa
Vaasan kaupunki - Vasa stad
File:Vaasa vapaudenpatsas.jpg
Coat of arms of City of Vaasa
Coat of arms
Location of Vaasa in Northern Europe
Location of Vaasa in Northern Europe
CountryFinland
ProvinceWestern Finland
RegionOstrobothnia
Charter1606
Government
 • City managerMarkku Lumio
Area
 • Total397 km2 (153 sq mi)
 • Land183 km2 (71 sq mi)
Population
 • Total57,030
Time zoneUTC+2 (CET)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+3 (CEST)
Official languagesFinnish, Swedish
Websitewww.vaasa.fi

Vaasa (Swedish: Vasa) is a city on the west coast of Finland. It received its charter in 1606, during the reign of Charles IX of Sweden and is named after the Royal House of Vasa. Today, Vaasa has a population of 57,501 (July 2007)[1] , and is part of the administrative province of Western Finland and is the regional capital of Ostrobothnia.

The city is bilingual with 71.5% of the population speaking Finnish as their first language and 24.9% speaking Swedish. The city is an important centre for Finland-Swedish culture.

History

Name

Over the years, Vaasa has changed its name several times, due to alternative spellings, political decisions and language condition changes. At first it was called Mustasaari or Mussor after the village where it was founded in 1606, but just a few years later the name was changed to Wasa to honor the royal Swedish lineage. The city was known as Wasa between 1606 and 1855, Nikolainkaupunki (Finnish) and Nikolaistad (Swedish) between 1855 and 1917, Vasa (Swedish) between 1917 and ca 1930, and finally Vaasa (Finnish) and Vasa (Swedish) from ca 1930 until today.

Foundation

The history of Korsholm (Mustasaari in Finnish) and also of Vaasa begins in the 14th century, when seafarers from the coastal region in central Sweden disembarked at the present Old Vaasa, and the wasteland owners from Finland Proper came to guard their land.

In the middle of the century Saint Mary's Church was built and in the 1370's the building of the fortress at Korsholm, Crysseborgh, was undertaken, and served as an administrative centre of the Vasa County. King Charles IX of Sweden founded the town of Mustasaari/Mussor on October 2, 1606 around the oldest harbour and trade point around the Korsholm church approximately seven kilometres to the southwest from the present city. In 1611 the town was chartered and renamed after the Royal House of Vasa.

Korsholm castle as a detail on a map made after 1752. The picture might depict a drawing from the 17th century, but is unreliable as a source. The detailed portal might have some equivalence with reality.

Thanks to the sea connections, ship building and trade, especially tar trade, Vaasa flourished in the 17th century and most of the inhabitants earned their living from it.

In 1683 the three-subject or 'trivial' school moved from Nykarleby to Vaasa and four years later a new schoolhouse was built in Vaasa. The first library in Finland was founded in Vaasa in 1794. In 1793 Vaasa had 2,178 inhabitants, and in the year of the catastrophic town fire of 1852 the number had risen to 3,200.

Old Vaasa in the 1840s by Johan Knutsson

Town fire

The mainly wooden and densely built town was almost utterly destroyed in 1852. A fire started in an outhouse belonging to district court judge J.F. Aurén on the morning of August 3. At noon the whole town was ablaze and the fire lasted for many hours. In the evening most of the town had burned to the ground. Out of 379 buildings only 24 privately owned buildings had survived, among them the Falander-Wasastjerna patrician house (built in 1780-1781) which now houses the Old Vaasa museum.

The Court of Appeal (built in 1775, nowadays the Church of Korsholm), some Russian guard-houses along with a gunpowder storage and the buildings of the Vaasa provincial hospital (nowadays a psychiatric hospital) also survived the blaze. The ruins of the greystone church, the belfry, the town hall and the trivialschool can still be found in their original places. Much of the archived material concerning Vaasa and its inhabitants was destroyed in the fire. According to popular belief the fire got started when a careless visitor fell asleep in Auréns outhouse and dropped his pipe in the dry hay.

The Court of Appeal, nowadays the Church of Korsholm, survived the fire of 1852

The new town

The new town of Nikolaistad (Nikolainkaupunki in Finnish, after late Tsar Nicholas I) rose in 1862 about seven kilometres to the northwest from the old town. The town's coastal location offered good conditions for seafaring. The town plan was planned by Carl Axel Setterberg in the Empire style. In the master plan the disastrous consequences of the fire were considered. Main streets in the new town were five broad avenues which divided the town into sections. Each block was divided by alleys.

The town was promptly renamed Vasa after the Tsar Nicholas II was overthrown in 1917.

File:Vaasa vapaudenpatsas.jpg
Statue of Freedom in the centre of Vaasa

Site of Government

During the Finnish Civil War, Vasa was the capital of Finland from January 29 to May 3, 1918. As a consequence of the occupation of central places and arresting of politicians in Helsinki the Senate decided to move the senators to Vasa, where the White Guards that supported the Senate had a strong position and the contacts to the west were good.

The Senate of Finland began its work in Vasa on February 1, 1918 and it had four members. The Senate held its sessions in the Town Hall. To express its gratitude to the town the senate gave Vasa the right to add the cross of freedom, independent Finland's oldest mark of honour designed by Akseli Gallen-Kallela, to its coat of arms. Because of its role in the civil war Vasa became known as 'The White City'. The language conditions in the city shifted in the 1930s, and the majority became Finnish. Therefore the name also changed to "Vaasa", according to Finnish spelling.

University City

Vaasa has three universities. The largest one is the University of Vaasa, which is located in the neighbourhood of Palosaari. Palosaari is a peninsula near the center of Vaasa, connected to it by bridges. The other two universities are Åbo Akademi, headquartered in Turku, and the Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, or Hanken, headquartered in Helsinki. Unique to Vaasa is the Finland-Swedish teachers training school, part of Åbo Akademi. University of Helsinki also has a small unit, specialized in law studies, in the same premises as Vaasa University.

The city has two Universities of Applied Sciences: Vaasa University of Applied Sciences (former Vaasa Polytechnic), located right next to the University of Vaasa, and Swedish University of Applied Sciences (former Swedish Polytechnic).

Major employers

Vaasa is generally speaking an industrial town, with several industrial parks. Industry comprises one-fourth of jobs. There is an university (University of Vaasa), faculties of Åbo Akademi and Hanken, and two Universities of Applied Sciences in the town. Many workers commute from Korsholm (Mustasaari), Laihia, and other municipalities nearby.

Major employers, in order:

  1. City of Vaasa
  2. ABB Strömberg — industrial and power electronics and automation equipment
  3. Vaasa Central Hospital
  4. State institutions
  5. Wärtsilä — diesel engines
  6. Vacon — frequency converters
  7. KWH Group — plastics, abrasives and logistics services
  8. TeliaSonera — telephony
  9. Vaasa Engineering
  10. Posti — mail
  11. VLP (Vaasa Area Telephone)
  12. Kemira Chemicals

Notable people from Vaasa

Cooperation cities

As of 2006, Vaasa has town twinning treaties or treaties of cooperation signed with nine cities.

Trivia

References

  • Julkunen, Mikko: Vaasa - Vasa. Vaasa: Vaasa, 1982. ISBN 951-660-076-X (Photo book with English text.)
  1. ^ "The current population of Vaasa". City of Vaasa. Retrieved 2007-08-22.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Vaasa.

Maps

Media

Education

Tritonia is the Academic Library of Vaasa and is shared by the city's three universities

Sports


63°05′45″N 21°36′55″E / 63.09583°N 21.61528°E / 63.09583; 21.61528

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