Uusimaa (; , ) is a region of Finland. It borders the regions of Southwest Finland, Kanta-Häme, Päijät-Häme, and Kymenlaakso. Finland's capital and largest city, Helsinki, along with its surrounding metropolitan area, is located in the Uusimaa region, which is Finland's most populous region. Its population is 1,734,000.

History

From the time of the Vikings in the 8th century, an eastern road ran along the Gulf of Finland. The first inhabitants were nomads. The place name of Nuuksio derives from the Sami word which means 'swan. Later Finns proper and Tavastians inhabited the area. Some place names have traces of Tavastian village names, like Konala, which likely derives from the older Tavastian village name Konhola. Estonians inhabited the region to a smaller extent, specifically for seasonal fishing.

Swedish colonisation of coastal Uusimaa started after the second crusade to Finland in the 13th century. The colonisation was part of converting pagan areas to Catholicism. Eastern Uusimaa had its first Christian Swedish colonialists earlier than the western part, which got its colonialists in one mass transfer of people to Porvoo in the 14th century. The colonisation was supported by the Swedish kingdom and the immigrants were provided with grain seeds and cattle. They also got a four-year tax exemption from the crown.

The names and , meaning 'new land' in English, derived from the Swedish colonisation era. The Swedish-language name appears in documents from the 14th century. The Finnish-language name appears for the first time in 1548 as in the first translation of the New Testament to Finnish by Mikael Agricola. Much of Uusimaa is literally new – it has risen off the Baltic Sea due to post-glacial rebound.

The Finnish provinces (, ) were ceded to Russian Empire after the Finnish War in 1809, when they were organized as the Grand Duchy of Finland. Finland became independent in 1917.

The provincial system was restructured in 1997, and from 1997 to 2010 Uusimaa formed a part of the Southern Finland Province. The provincial system was abolished in 2010 in favour of regions (, ). The regions had traditionally existed as cultural units but were made into administrative units in 1994. Initially, Uusimaa was divided into the regions of Uusimaa and Eastern Uusimaa, but in 2011 the two regions were merged into a single region, Uusimaa.

Heraldry

The coat of arms features two silver, wavy fesses on a blue field, with a golden boat with a rudder between them. The boat symbolizes the coastal character of the region, while the silver fesses may represent its rivers.

Uusimaa Province received its coat of arms at the end of the 16th century, and it is attested in 1599. In 1997, when the regional system was formalized, the traditional provincial coat of arms was adopted as the coat of arms of the Uusimaa region.

Municipalities on the map

Sub-regions

Helsinki sub-region

  • 15px|link=Espoo Espoo (Esbo)
  • 15px|link=Helsinki Helsinki (Helsingfors)
  • 15px|link=Hyvinkää Hyvinkää (Hyvinge)
  • 15px|link=Järvenpää Järvenpää (Träskända)
  • 15px|link=Karkkila Karkkila (Högfors)
  • 15px|link=Kauniainen Kauniainen (Grankulla)
  • 15px|link=Kerava Kerava (Kervo)
  • 15px|link=Kirkkonummi Kirkkonummi (Kyrkslätt)
  • 15px|link=Lohja Lohja (Lojo)
  • 15px|link=Mäntsälä Mäntsälä
  • 15px|link=Nurmijärvi Nurmijärvi
  • 15px|link=Pornainen Pornainen (Borgnäs)
  • 15px|link=Sipoo Sipoo (Sibbo)
  • 15px|link=Siuntio Siuntio (Sjundeå)
  • 15px|link=Tuusula Tuusula (Tusby)
  • 15px|link=Vantaa Vantaa (Vanda)
  • 15px|link=Vihti Vihti (Vichtis)

Loviisa sub-region

  • 15px|link=Lapinjärvi (municipality) Lapinjärvi (Lappträsk)
  • 15px|link=Loviisa Loviisa (Lovisa)

Raseborg sub-region

  • 15px|link=Hanko, Finland Hanko (Hangö)
  • 15px|link=Ingå Ingå (Inkoo)
  • 15px|link=Raseborg Raseborg (Raasepori)

Porvoo sub-region

  • 15px|link=Askola Askola
  • 15px|link=Myrskylä Myrskylä (Mörskom)
  • 15px|link=Porvoo Porvoo (Borgå)
  • 15px|link=Pukkila Pukkila

Municipalities listed

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="font-size: 90%; text-align: right; line-height: normal"

|-

! class="unsortable" |Coat of<br/>arms

! Municipality

! Population

! Land area<br/>(km<sup>2</sup>)

! Density<br/>(/km<sup>2</sup>)

! Finnish<br/>speakers

! Swedish<br/>speakers

! Other<br/>speakers

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Askola|| Askola || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Espoo|| Espoo || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Hanko|| Hanko || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Helsinki|| Helsinki || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Hyvinkää|| Hyvinkää || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Ingå|| Ingå || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Järvenpää|| Järvenpää || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Karkkila|| Karkkila || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Kauniainen|| Kauniainen || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Kerava|| Kerava || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Kirkkonummi|| Kirkkonummi || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Lapinjärvi|| Lapinjärvi || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Lohja|| Lohja || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms Loviisa|| Loviisa || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Myrskylä|| Myrskylä || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Mäntsälä|| Mäntsälä || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Nurmijärvi|| Nurmijärvi || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Pornainen|| Pornainen || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Porvoo|| Porvoo || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Pukkila|| Pukkila || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Raseborg|| Raseborg || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Sipoo|| Sipoo || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Siuntio|| Siuntio || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Tuusula|| Tuusula || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Vantaa|| Vantaa || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

|50px|border|coat of arms of Vihti|| Vihti || || ||

|| &nbsp;% || &nbsp;% || &nbsp;%

|-

!!!+ style=text-align:right | Total !!+ style=text-align:right | !!+ style=text-align:right | !!+ style=text-align:right |

!!+ style=text-align:right | &nbsp;%

!!+ style=text-align:right | &nbsp;%

!!+ style=text-align:right | &nbsp;%

|}

Places of interest

thumb|A historical old town of [[Porvoo]]

Uusimaa, the region surrounding Finland’s capital Helsinki, offers many sights and attractions, from historical landmarks to natural wonders. The employment rate is 76% as of 2022, second highest in Finland. There were 836,000 workplaces in Uusimaa in 2021, over 35% of the workplaces in Finland. The most common sectors were health and social services, wholesale and retail trade as well as professional, scientific and technical activities.

Demographics

Population

Languages

Uusimaa is a bilingual region, with municipalities both bilingual in Finnish and Swedish, and monolingual in Finnish. Uusimaa's coastal areas tend to be Swedish-speaking. The traditional regional dialects of Swedish () are mostly spoken in Eastern Uusimaa, while in the rest of the Uusimaa Swedish dialect has become more standardised.

The Finnish-speaking population started to grow when the capital of the Grand Duchy of Finland was moved from Turku to Helsinki by the Emperor of Russia Alexander I in 1812, and the region attracted settlers from other parts of Finland. Helsinki slang first evolved in the late 19th century. 7.6% of the population of the region speaks the Swedish language natively.

Due to immigration, many foreign languages are spoken in Uusimaa. 19% speak a foreign language as their mother tongue, the highest proportion in Finland and 58% of all foreign-language speakers in Finland. The figure was 1.1% in 1990, 3.9% in 2000, 8.0% in 2010 and 14.7% in 2020. Meanwhile, the proportion of Finnish and Swedish speakers has decreased from 87.6% and 11.3% in 1990 to 75.9% and 7.5% in 2021 respectively. On a municipal level, the highest shares of foreign speakers are in Vantaa (28.7%), Espoo (25.0%), Helsinki (20.4%) and Kerava (17.3%). The lowest share is in Pukkila (3.7%).

The most spoken foreign languages are Russian (2.9%), Estonian (1.9%), Arabic (1.5%), Somali (1.2%) and English (1.2%). Other languages include Albanian, Chinese, Persian, Kurdish, Vietnamese, Spanish, Turkish, Thai, Tagalog, German, Nepali, Bengali, French, Romanian, Urdu, Hindi, Portuguese, Ukrainian, Italian, Polish, Tamil, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Swahili, Amharic, Serbo-Croatian, Latvian, Japanese, Dutch, Sinhalese, Tigrinya, Uzbek, Greek, Punjabi, Pashto and Telugu, all with over 1,000 speakers.

Health

thumb|Map of the Uusimaa welfare region

In late March 2020, the region of Uusimaa went into lockdown to be isolated from the rest of Finland due to the global COVID-19 pandemic (2020/21).

Regional council

The regional council is the main governing body for the region and focuses primarily on urban planning. Like all regional councils, it is mandated by law.

Media

thumb|upright|[[Hufvudstadsbladets building, Mannerheimintie, Helsinki]]

Newspapers

The largest subscription newspapers published in the region are and Hufvudstadsbladet in Helsinki, Aamuposti in Hyvinkää, Länsi-Uusimaa in Lohja, ' and Östra Nyland in Loviisa, Uusimaa and Borgåbladet in Porvoo, Västra Nyland in Raseborg, and ' in Tuusula. Also two popular tabloid newspapers, Iltalehti and Ilta-Sanomat, are published there.

Radio stations

Yle's local radio stations in the western part of the region are the Finnish-language and Swedish-language Yle Vega Västnyland, in the Helsinki metropolitan area the Finnish-language and Swedish-language Yle Vega Huvudstadsregionen, and in the eastern part the Finnish-language (discontinued) and Swedish-language Yle Vega Östnyland.

Politics

For parliamentary elections, the Uusimaa region is divided into two electoral districts: The Helsinki constituency, which includes the city of Helsinki; and the Uusimaa constituency, which includes the region's other municipalities. These constituencies elect 23 and 37 members of the Parliament of Finland, respectively. The total number of MPs is 200.

See also

  • List of European regions by GDP

Notes

References

Further reading

  • ¨
  • Uusimaa Regional Council