Helsinki metropolitan area in the context of "Helsinki University of Technology"

Helsinki (Swedish: Helsingfors) is the capital and most populous city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About 690,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.3 million in the capital region and 1.6 million in the metropolitan area. As the most populous urban area in Finland, it is the country's most significant centre for politics, education, finance, culture, and research. Helsinki is 80 kilometres (50 mi) north of Tallinn, Estonia, 400 kilometres (250 mi) east of Stockholm, Sweden, and 300 kilometres (190 mi) west of Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Together with the cities of Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen—and surrounding commuter towns, including the neighbouring municipality of Sipoo to the east—Helsinki forms a metropolitan area. This area is often considered Finland's only metropolis and is the world's northernmost metropolitan area with over one million inhabitants. Additionally, it is the northernmost capital of an EU member state. Helsinki is the third-largest municipality in the Nordic countries, after Stockholm and Oslo. Its urban area is the third-largest in the Nordic countries, after Stockholm and Copenhagen. Helsinki Airport, in the neighbouring city of Vantaa, serves the city with frequent flights to numerous destinations in Europe, North America, and Asia.

Tampere is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Pirkanmaa. It is in the Finnish Lakeland. Tampere's population is about 261,000, while the metropolitan area has a population of about 425,000. It is Finland's 3rd most populous municipality and the second most populous urban area in the country after the Helsinki metropolitan area.

Tampere is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries. The urban area has a population of about 340,000. Tampere is considered the most important urban, economic and cultural centre in the whole of inland Finland.

Turku (/ˈtʊərkuː/ TOOR-koo; Finnish: [ˈturku] ; Swedish: Åbo, Finland Swedish: [ˈoːbu] ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Southwest Finland. It is located on the southwestern coast of the country at the mouth of the River Aura. The population of Turku is approximately 207,000, while the metropolitan area has a population of approximately 317,000. It is the 6th–most populous municipality in Finland, and the third–most populous urban area in the country after Helsinki and Tampere.

Turku is Finland's oldest city. It is not known when Turku was granted city status. Pope Gregory IX first mentioned the town of Aboa in his Bulla in 1229, and this year is now used as the founding year of the city. Turku was the most important city in the eastern part (today's Finland) of the Kingdom of Sweden. After the Finnish War, Finland became an autonomous Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire in 1809, and Turku became the capital of the Grand Duchy. However, Turku lost its status as capital only three years later in 1812, when Tsar Alexander I of Russia decided to move the capital to Helsinki. It was only after the last great fire in 1827 that most government institutions were moved to Helsinki along with the Royal Academy of Turku, founded in 1640, which later became the University of Helsinki, thus consolidating Helsinki's position as the new capital. Turku was Finland's most populous city until the late 1840s and remains the regional capital, an important business and cultural centre, and a port.

Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, in the Helsinki metropolitan area, but the company's actual roots are in the Tampere region of Pirkanmaa. In 2020, Nokia employed approximately 92,000 people across over 100 countries, did business in more than 130 countries, and reported annual revenues of around €23 billion. Nokia is a public limited company listed on the Nasdaq Helsinki and New York Stock Exchange. It was the world's 415th-largest company measured by 2016 revenues, according to the Fortune Global 500, having peaked at 85th place in 2009. It is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index.

The company has operated in various industries over the past 150 years. It was founded as a pulp mill and had long been associated with rubber and cables, but since the 1990s has focused on large-scale telecommunications infrastructure, technology development, and licensing. Nokia made significant contributions to the mobile telephony industry, assisting in the development of the GSM, 3G, and LTE standards. For a decade beginning in 1998, Nokia was the largest worldwide vendor of mobile phones and smartphones. In the later 2000s, however, Nokia suffered from a series of poor management decisions and soon saw its share of the mobile phone market drop sharply.

Uusimaa (Finnish: [ˈuːsimɑː]; Swedish: Nyland, Finland Swedish: [ˈnyːlɑnd]; both lit. 'new land') 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 the surrounding metropolitan area, are both contained in the region, and Uusimaa is Finland's most populous region. The population of Uusimaa is 1,734,000.

While predominantly Finnish-speaking, Uusimaa has the highest total number of native speakers of Swedish in Finland even at a much lower share than two other regions.

Sipoo (Finnish pronunciation: [ˈsipoː]; Swedish: Sibbo) is a municipality of Finland. It is part of the Helsinki metropolitan area. The municipality has a population of 22,903(30 June 2025) and covers an area of 698.60 square kilometres (269.73 sq mi) ofwhich 358.97 km (138.60 sq mi)is water. The population density is67.43 inhabitants per square kilometre (174.6/sq mi). The administrative center of the municipality is Nikkilä (Swedish: Nickby), which is located 34 kilometres (21 mi) northeast of the center of Helsinki. Another significant urban area is Söderkulla, located in the southern part of the municipality.

Sipoo is a bilingual municipality with Finnish and Swedish as its official languages. The population consists of 65% Finnish speakers, 27% Swedish speakers, and 8% speakers of other languages.

The Helsinki capital region (Finnish: pääkaupunkiseutu, Swedish: huvudstadsregion) is the area formed by the cities of Espoo, Helsinki, Kauniainen and Vantaa in Finland. The area is limited around Helsinki, the capital of Finland. The area is located in the southern part of Finland on the shores of the Gulf of Finland and is an important growth centre with a population of 1.3 million.

The municipalities of the capital region have a legal obligation to cooperate in the areas of waste management and public transport, with HSL being responsible for public transport and HSY for waste management and water supply. Municipalities other than the four capital region municipalities may also be members of the association of municipalities. HSL has Kirkkonummi, Kerava, Tuusula, Sipoo from the Helsinki metropolitan area and Siuntio from outside the area, and Kirkkonummi for the waste management of HSY.

Helsinki-Vantaa Airport (Finnish: Helsinki-Vantaan lentoasema, Swedish: Helsingfors-Vanda flygplats) (IATA: HEL, ICAO: EFHK), or simply Helsinki Airport, is the main international airport serving Helsinki, the capital of Finland, as well as its surrounding metropolitan area, and the Uusimaa region in Finland. The airport is located in the neighbouring city of Vantaa, about 5 kilometres (3 mi) west of Tikkurila, the administrative centre of Vantaa and 9.2 NM (17.0 km; 10.6 mi) north of Helsinki's city centre. The airport is operated by state-owned Finavia. The facility covers a total of 1,800 hectares (4,448 acres) of land and contains three runways.

The airport is by far the busiest in Finland (with 20 times the traffic of the next-busiest, Rovaniemi) and the fourth busiest in the Nordic countries in terms of passenger numbers. About 90% of Finland's international air traffic passes through Helsinki Airport. In 2023, Helsinki Airport had a total of 15.3 million passengers, 88% of whom were international passengers and 12% domestic passengers. On average, the airport handles around 350 departures a day.