Nykarleby, Ostrobothnia, Finland

🇫🇮 Nykarleby (Uusikaarlepyy,) is a town and municipality of Finland. It is located in the Ostrobothnia region. The municipality is bilingual, with the majority speaking Swedish (0%) and the minority Finnish (0%).

The largest employers in the town are Prevex (member of KWH Group), a packaging and piping products manufacturer, Westwood, which manufactures wooden staircases, and in the village of Jeppo, KWH Mirka, a coated abrasives manufacturer. A Swedish-speaking art school (Svenska Konstskolan) is located in Nykarleby town.

History The town is located at the mouth of the Lapua River. The name of the place was Lapuan Joensuu or 'mouth of Lapua river'. The municipality was founded in 1607 by merging parts of Pedersöre and Vörå into a new parish. In 1620, the small village of Lepua was chartered as a city, with the Swedish name Nykarleby, which means 'New Karleby'; the Finnish name is a Finnicized version of the same. The town was chartered in the same year as the nearby city of Kokkola, or in Swedish, Gamlakarleby (later, Karleby).

The battles of Nykarleby and Jutas were fought there between Swedish and Russian troops during the Finnish War in 1808.

Zacharias Topelius, an important author in Finland, was born in Nykarleby.

In 1995, the small, idyllic town was ranked as "the happiest city in Finland" in a controversial article in Helsingin Sanomat, the leading newspaper of Finland. Nykarleby has the highest concentration of Ukrainian speakers in Finland.