Hämeenlinna, Kanta-Häme, Finland

🇫🇮 Hämeenlinna is a city and municipality situated in the heart of the historical province of Tavastia and the modern province of Kanta-Häme in the south of Finland. Hämeenlinna is the oldest inland city of Finland and was one of the most important Finnish cities until the 19th century. It still remains an important regional centre. The medieval Häme Castle is located in the city.

Hämeenlinna is known as the birthplace of Finnish national composer Jean Sibelius. Today, it belongs to the region of Kanta-Häme, and before 2010 it was the residence city for the Governor of the province of Southern Finland. Nearby cities include the capital Helsinki (98 km or 61 mi), Tampere (73 km or 45 mi) and Lahti (72 km or 45 mi), the regional centre of Päijänne Tavastia (Päijät-Häme).

The neighbouring municipalities of Hämeenlinna are Akaa, Asikkala, Hattula, Hausjärvi, Hollola, Janakkala, Loppi, Padasjoki, Pälkäne, Tammela, Urjala and Valkeakoski. The former municipalities, Hauho, Kalvola, Lammi, Renko and Tuulos, were consolidated with Hämeenlinna on 1 January 2009; with these municipal associations, the Hattula municipality is almost completely surrounded by Hämeenlinna.

The coat of arms of Hämeenlinna is based on the 17th-century town seal, which in turn refers to the Häme Castle built by the Lake Vanajavesi in the Middle Ages, near which the city was founded. The current coat of arms was designed by Gustaf von Numers on the basis of the old coat of arms, and was confirmed on September 21, 1956.

History Vanaja is the name of a settlement next to Vanajavesi that had been in existence since the Viking Age. The castle was built in the late 13th century to secure Swedish power in central Finland. A village was established near Häme Castle to provide services and goods to its inhabitants.

The village was granted city rights on January 19, 1639, but Hämeenlinna, which still after that looked more like a rural village, developed very slowly, which was a typical problem for inland cities in Finland compared to the most prosperous coastal cities. In 1777, King Gustav III of Sweden moved it one kilometre (0.6 miles) south to the hill on which it still stands.

The city is known for its schools and academies where many famous Finns have studied. Schools, government and the military have characterised the life of Hämeenlinna throughout history. Finland's first railway line, the Finnish Main Railway (Finnish: Suomen päärata, Swedish: Stambanan), opened between Hämeenlinna and Helsinki on March 17, 1862. The current Hämeenlinna railway station (Rautatieasema in Finnish) was built in 1921.

During the Finnish Civil War in 1918, Hämeenlinna was initially in the area controlled by the Reds, but the Whites captured the city with the help of the Germans in the Battle of Hämeenlinna. After the war, the Hämeenlinna prison camp established for red prisoners operated in the Poltinaho barracks area, and it was known as one of the most notorious high-discipline camps in the history of the Civil War, where female prisoners were also kept. By mid-September, over 2,000 Red prisoners died in the prison camp, mainly for communicable diseases such as smallpox, scarlet fever, typhus and Spanish flu.

Geography There are a total of 339 lakes in whole or in part in the area of the city of Hämeenlinna. The largest of them are Lake Vanajavesi, Lake Kukkia and Lake Kuohijärvi. The main features of the Hämeenlinna landscape are the Häme Lake Plateau, the Vanajavesi Valley and the Kanta-Häme Grove Center. In many places, the landscapes are marked by the prosperous Tavastian agricultural culture.

The city has several nature reserves, the largest of which are located in the popular recreation areas of Aulanko and Ahvenisto on the outskirts of the city. In total, there are 31 Natura 2000 areas in the city of Hämeenlinna. In addition, Hämeenlinna has Finland's first national urban park, established in 2001.

Cityscape The centre of Hämeenlinna is located on the Saarinen Hill on the shores of Lake Vanajavesi, and is bordered on the west by Highway 3 (E12), while Highway 10 bypasses the city to the south and east. The street network in the centre is based on a grid pattern drawn up by C. L. Engel in 1832 with the Market Square as its center. On the edge of the market square are the town hall, Hämeenlinna Church and the Häme County Government House. The city centre is divided into four districts, which are Linnanniemi, Koilliskulma, Hämeensaari and Saaristenmäki. Raatihuoneenkatu, which has been partially transformed into a pedestrian street, is the most significant shopping street in the city center; for example, at the western end of the street, the Goodman Shopping Center was completed in October 2014.

There are plenty of buildings of different styles in the city centre, and in proportion to the city's population, it is quite large and densely built. The most significant expansion direction in the city centre in the 2010s has been the Keinusaari district on the other side of Lake Vanajavesi, where, for example, the city's railway station is located. Supplementary construction has also been carried out in the city centre on an ongoing basis. The centre of Hämeenlinna has been ridiculed as the "Finland's largest lit cemetery".

Population The city of Hämeenlinna has 68,303 inhabitants, making it the 15th most populous municipality in Finland. The Hämeenlinna region has a population of 93,804. In Hämeenlinna, 6.0% of the population has a foreign background, which is below the national average.

Languages Hämeenlinna is a monolingual Finnish-speaking municipality. The majority of the population – 63,759 people or 93.7% – speak Finnish as their first language. There are 254 Swedish speakers in Hämeenlinna, or 0.4% of the population. 5.9% of the population of Hämeenlinna have a mother tongue other than Finnish or Swedish. As English and Swedish are compulsory school subjects, functional bilingualism or trilingualism acquired through language studies is not uncommon.

At least 40 different languages are spoken in Hämeenlinna. The most common foreign languages are Estonian (0.7%), Russian (0.7%), Arabic (0.7%) and Farsi (0.5%).

Immigration In 2022, there were 4,056 persons with a migrant background living in Hämeenlinna, or 6.0% of the population. The number of residents who were born abroad was 3,949, or 5.8% of the population. The number of persons with foreign citizenship living in Hämeenlinna was 2,764. Most foreign-born citizens came from the Estonia, former Soviet Union, Iraq and Poland.

The relative share of immigrants in Hämeenlinna's population is below to the national average. However, the city's new residents are increasingly of foreign origin. This will increase the proportion of foreign residents in the coming years.

Religion In 2022, the Evangelical Lutheran Church was the largest religious group with 69.3% of the population of Hämeenlinna. Other religious groups accounted for 2.5% of the population. 28.2% of the population had no religious affiliation.

Economy The economic structure of Hämeenlinna is close to the national average. In 2015, there were 28,270 jobs in the city. Of these, 75% were in the service sector, 3% in primary production (agriculture, forestry and fisheries) and 21% in processing. The share of the unemployed was 13,6%.

Largest employers • City of Hämeenlinna; • State of Finland; • Kanta-Häme Hospital District; • Ruukki (Rautaruukki Oyj); • Huhtamäki Oyj; • HAMK University of Applied Sciences (an institution offering tertiary degree education); • Kansanterveystyön ky; • Patria Vehicles Oy; • Konecranes Standard Lifting Oy; • Koulutuskeskus Tavastia; • Aina Group Oyj; • Lindström Oy:.

Education Hämeenlinna is home to HAMK Häme University of Applied Sciences' headquarters. Founded in 1873, Hämeenlinna Lyceum has many cultural influencers. The school is one of the most famous educational institutions in Finland, as many well-known Finns have graduated from the institution; examples include master composer Jean Sibelius and president J. K. Paasikivi. Hämeenlinna Lyceum has a middle school (grades 7–9) and a high school. Another of the high schools in Hämeenlinna's inner city is Kauriala High School. Hämeenlinna's Lyceum and Kauriala High School were to be combined in the fall of 2018 to form a large high school with more than a thousand students on the Hattelmala campus of the Tavastia Education Consortium. However, the city council decided to cancel the high school project in the spring of 2018, and the high schools will continue to be separate.

Food In the 1980s, the following dishes were named Hämeenlinna's traditional cuisine: as a daily meal, smoked ham and sourdough; as a festive meal, the herring wrapped in rye dough, i.e. "fish bread", buttermilk and beer, and the riistansylttääjän lintupaisti, which means pheasant stuffed almonds with potato and apple slices.

Sport Elite level ice hockey teams HPK of the SM-liiga and HPK Kiekkonaiset of the Naisten Liiga • Football teams FC Hämeenlinna and the men's representative team of Hämeenlinnan Härmä, which play in the third-tier Kakkonen, and the women's representative team of Hämeenlinnan Härmä of the second-tier Naisten Ykkönen • The city hosted the modern pentathlon competition for the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. • Hämeenlinna hosted the first round of the Underwater Rugby Euroleague in October 2012 and again in 2015. • The Ahvenisto Race Circuit, opened in 1967, hosts many motorsport happenings. Track has an FIA Grade 4 license. • Steelers Sailbandy(Floorball) Club which play in the F-liiga.