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Helsinki () 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 people live in the municipality, with million in the capital region and 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 north of Tallinn, Estonia, east of Stockholm, Sweden, and 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.
Helsinki is a bilingual municipality with Finnish language and Swedish language as its official languages. The population consists of Finnish speakers, Swedish speakers, and speakers of other languages.
Helsinki has hosted the 1952 Summer Olympics, the first CSCE/OSCE Summit in 1975, the first World Athletics Championships in 1983, the 52nd Eurovision Song Contest in 2007 and it was the 2012 World Design Capital. The city is recognized as a "Design City" in 2014 by UNESCO's Creative Cities Network.
Helsinki has one of the highest standards of urban living in the world. In 2011, the British magazine Monocle ranked Helsinki as the world's most liveable city in its livable cities index. In the Economist Intelligence Unit's 2016 livability survey, Helsinki ranked ninth out of 140 cities. In July 2021, the American magazine Time named Helsinki one of the world's greatest places, a city that "can grow into a burgeoning cultural nest in the future" and is already known as an environmental pioneer. In an international Cities of Choice survey conducted in 2021 by the Boston Consulting Group and the BCG Henderson Institute, Helsinki was ranked the third-best city in the world to live in, with London and New York City coming in first and second. In the Condé Nast Traveler magazine's 2023 Readers' Choice Awards, Helsinki was ranked the 4th-friendliest city in Europe. Helsinki, along with Rovaniemi in Lapland, is also one of Finland's most important tourism cities. Lapin Kansa: Rovaniemen ja Helsingin johtajat saivat ministeriltä tehtävän miettiä, miten matkailu nousee korona-ajan mentyä ohi – Rahaa on luvassa EU:n elpymispaketista Lapin (in Finnish) Due to the large number of sea passengers, Helsinki is classified as a major port city, and in 2017 it was rated the world's busiest passenger port.
When a town was founded in the village of Koskela (later Koskela) in 1548, it was called Helsinge fors, 'Helsinge rapids'. The name refers to the rapids at the mouth of the river. The town was commonly known as Helsinge or Helsing, from which the modern Finnish name is derived.
Official Finnish government documents and Finnish language newspapers have used the name Helsinki since 1819, when the Senate of Finland moved to the city from Turku, the former capital of Finland. Decrees issued in Helsinki were dated with Helsinki as the place of issue. This is how the form Helsinki came to be used in written Finnish. When Finland became the Grand Duchy of Finland, an autonomous state under the rule of the Russian Empire, Helsinki was known as (Гельсингфорс) in Russian, because the main and official language of the Grand Duchy of Finland was Swedish.
In Helsinki slang, the city is called Stadi (from the Swedish word stad, meaning 'city'). Abbreviated form Hesa is equally common, but its use is associated with people of rural origin ("junantuomat", lit. "brought by a train") and frowned upon by locals.Ristkari, Maiju: Heinäsorsat Helsingissä. Aku Ankka #44/2013, introduction on page 2. Helsset is the Northern Sami name for Helsinki.
Christianity does not gain a significant foothold in Finland before the 11th century. After that, a number of Christian cross and other objects related to Christianity can be found in archaeological material. According to the traditional view, the Kingdom of Sweden made three crusades to Finland, thanks to which the region was incorporated into both Christianity and the Swedish Empire. Recent research has shown that these expeditions, to the extent that there were even three of them, were not the crusades that had been imagined. Later, the conquest of Finland was justified in terms of "civilisation" and "christianisation", and the myth of the Crusades was developed. It is more likely that it was a multidimensional combination of economic, cultural and political power ambitions.
The early settlements were raided by Vikings until 1008, and the Battle at Herdaler was a battle between the Norse Viking leader Olav Haraldsson (later King Olaf II of Norway, also known as Saint Olaf) and local Finns at Herdaler (now Ingå), not far from Helsinga, around 1007–8. The Heimskringla tells how Olav raided the coasts of Finland and was almost killed in battle. He ran away in fear and after that the Vikings did not raid the coasts of Finland.
Later the area was settled by Christians from Sweden. They came mainly from the Swedish coastal regions of Norrland and Hälsingland, and their migration intensified around 1100. The Swedes permanently colonised the Helsinki region's coastline in the late 13th century, after the successful crusade to Finland that led to the defeat of the Tavastians.
In the Middle Ages, the Helsinki area was a landscape of small villages. Some of the old villages from the 1240s in the area of present-day Helsinki, such as Koskela and Töölö, are now Helsinki districts, as are the rest of the 27 medieval villages. The area gradually became part of the Kingdom of Sweden and Christianity. Kuninkaantie, or the "King's Road", ran through the area and two interesting medieval buildings were built here: in the 1380s and the Church of St. Lawrence in 1455. In the Middle Ages, several thousand people lived in Helsinki's keep.
There was a lot of trade across the Baltic Sea. The shipping route to the coast, and especially to Reval, meant that by the end of the Middle Ages the Helsinki region had become an important trading centre for wealthy , and nobility in Finland, after Vyborg and Pohja. , wood, tar, fish and animals were exported from Helsinki, and salt and grain were brought to the fortress. Helsinki was also the most important cattle-breeding area in Uusimaa. With the help of trade, Helsinki became one of the wealthiest cities in Finland and Uusimaa. Thanks to trade and travel, e.g. to Reval, people could speak several languages, at least helpfully. Depending on the situation, Finnish, Swedish, Latin or Low German could be heard in the Helsinki area.
Written chronicles from 1417 mention the village of Koskela near the rapids at the mouth of the Vantaa River, where Helsinki was to be founded.
During the second half of the 17th century, Helsinki, as a wooden city, suffered from regular , and by the beginning of the 18th century the population had fallen below 1,700. For a long time Helsinki was mainly a small administrative town for the governors of Nyland and Tavastehus County, but its importance began to grow in the 18th century when plans were made to build a more solid naval defence in front of the city. Little came of these plans, however, as Helsinki remained a small town plagued by poverty, war and disease. The plague of 1710 killed most of Helsinki's population. After the Russians captured Helsinki in May 1713 during the Great Northern War, the retreating Swedish administration set fire to parts of the city. Despite this, the city's population grew to 3,000 by the beginning of the 19th century. The construction of the naval fortress of Suomenlinna ( Viapori in Finnish, now also called Suomenlinna) in the 18th century helped to improve Helsinki's status. However, it wasn't until Russia defeated Sweden in the Finnish War and annexed Finland as the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland in 1809 that the city began to develop into a substantial city. The Russians besieged the Sveaborg fortress during the war, and about a quarter of the city was destroyed in a fire in 1808.
Emperor Alexander I of Russia moved the capital of Finland from Turku to Helsinki on 8 April 1812 to reduce Swedish influence in Finland and bring the capital closer to St Petersburg. After the Great Fire of Turku in 1827, the Royal Academy of Turku, the only university in the country at the time, was also moved to Helsinki and eventually became the modern University of Helsinki. The move consolidated the city's new role and helped set it on a path of continuous growth. This transformation is most evident in the city centre, which was rebuilt in the neoclassicism style to resemble St. Petersburg, largely according to a plan by the German-born architect C. L. Engel. As elsewhere, technological advances such as the railway and industrialisation were key factors in the city's growth.
Helsinki's main islands include Seurasaari, Lauttasaari and Korkeasaari – the latter is home to Finland's largest zoo, Korkeasaari Zoo. The former military islands of Vallisaari and Isosaari are now open to the public, but Santahamina is still in military use. The most historic and remarkable island is the fortress of Suomenlinna (Sveaborg). The island of Pihlajasaari is a popular summer resort, comparable to Fire Island in New York City.
There are 60 in Helsinki with a total area of . Of the total area, are water areas and are land areas. The city also has seven nature reserves in Espoo, Sipoo, Hanko and Ingå. The largest nature reserve is the Vanhankaupunginselkä, with an area of . The city's first nature reserve, Tiiraluoto of Lauttasaari, was established in 1948.
Helsinki's official plant is the Norway maple and its official animal is the red squirrel.
The Helsinki metropolitan area or the Greater Helsinki consists of the cities of the capital region and ten surrounding municipalities: Hyvinkää, Järvenpää, Kerava, Kirkkonummi, Nurmijärvi, Sipoo, Tuusula, Pornainen, Mäntsälä and Vihti. The Metropolitan Area covers and has a population of about million, or about a fourth of the total population of Finland. The metropolitan area has a high concentration of employment: approximately 750,000 jobs. Despite the intensity of land use, the region also has large recreational areas and green spaces. The Helsinki metropolitan area is the world's northernmost urban area with a population of over one million people, and the northernmost EU capital city.
The Helsinki urban area is an officially recognized urban area in Finland, defined by its population density. The area stretches throughout 11 municipalities, and is the largest such area in Finland, with a land area of and approximately 1.36 million inhabitants.
Winters in Helsinki are significantly warmer than in the north of Finland, and the snow season in the capital is much shorter due to its location in the extreme south of Finland and the urban heat island effect. Temperatures below occur only a few times a year. However, due to the latitude, the days around the winter solstice are 5 hours and 48 minutes long, with the sun very low (at noon the sun is just over 6 degrees in the sky), and the cloudy weather at this time of year exacerbates the darkness. Conversely, Helsinki enjoys long days in summer, with 18 hours and 57 minutes of daylight around the summer solstice.
The average maximum temperature from June to August is around . Due to the sea effect, especially on hot summer days, daytime temperatures are slightly cooler and nighttime temperatures higher than further inland. The highest temperature recorded in the city was on 28 July 2019 at the Kaisaniemi weather station, breaking the previous record of set in July 1945 at the Ilmala weather station. The lowest temperature recorded in the city was on 10 January 1987, although an unofficial low of was recorded in December 1876. Helsinki Airport (in Vantaa, 17 km north of Helsinki city centre) recorded a maximum temperature of on 29 July 2010 and a minimum of on 9 January 1987. Precipitation comes from frontal passages and thunderstorms. Thunderstorms are most common in summer.
Helsinki is also home to numerous Art Nouveau-influenced (Jugendstil in Finnish) buildings belonging to the Kansallisromantiikka (romantic nationalism) trend, designed in the early 20th century and strongly influenced by Kalevala, which was a common theme of the era. Helsinki's Art Nouveau style is also featured in central residential districts, such as Katajanokka and Ullanlinna. An important architect of the Finnish Art Nouveau style was Eliel Saarinen, whose architectural masterpiece was the Helsinki Central Station. Opposite the Bank of Finland building is the Renaissance Revivalish the House of the Estates (1891).
The only visible public buildings of the Gothic Revival architecture in Helsinki are St. John's Church (1891) in Ullanlinna, which is the largest stone church in Finland, and its twin towers rise to 74 meters and have 2,600 seats. Other examples of neo-Gothic include the House of Nobility in Kruununhaka and the Catholic St. Henry's Cathedral.
In addition to other cities in Northern Europe that were not under the Soviet Union, such as Stockholm, Sweden, Helsinki's neoclassical buildings gained also popularity as a backdrop for scenes intended to depict the Soviet Union in numerous Hollywood movies during the Cold War era, when filming within the actual USSR was not possible. Some of them, including The Kremlin Letter (1970), Reds (1981), and Gorky Park (1983). were possible due to such Russian cities as Leningrad and Moscow also having similar neoclassical architecture. At the same time due to Cold War and Finnish relations with the USSR the government secretly instructed Finnish officials not to extend assistance to such film projects.Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, Political Department: The city has large numbers of underground areas such as shelters and tunnels, many used daily as swimming pool, church, water management, entertainment etc.
Functionalist buildings in Helsinki by other architects include the Olympic Stadium, the Tennispalatsi, the Rowing Stadium, the Swimming Stadium, the Velodrome, the Lasipalatsi, the Töölö Sports Hall, and Helsinki-Malmi Airport. The sports venues were built to serve the 1940 Helsinki Olympic Games; the games were initially cancelled due to the Second World War, but the venues fulfilled their purpose in the 1952 Olympic Games. Many of them are listed by DoCoMoMo as significant examples of modern architecture. The Olympic Stadium and Helsinki-Malmi Airport are also catalogued by the Finnish Heritage Agency as cultural-historical environments of national significance. The Linnanmäki Amusement Park, owned by the non-profit , was opened in 1950.
When Finland became heavily urbanized in the 1960s and 1970s, the district of Pihlajamäki, for example, was built in Helsinki for new residents, where for the first time in Finland, precast concrete was used on a large scale. Pikku Huopalahti, built in the 1980s and 1990s, has tried to get rid of a one-size-fits-all grid pattern, which means that its look is very organic and its streets are not repeated in the same way. Itäkeskus in Eastern Helsinki was the first regional center in the 1980s.Ilonen, Arvi: Helsinki, Espoo, Kauniainen, Vantaa – arkkitehtuuriopas. Helsinki: Otava, 2009. . Efforts have also been made to protect Helsinki in the late 20th century, and many old buildings have been renovated. Modern architecture is represented, for example, by the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, which consists of two straight and curved-walled parts, though this style strongly divided the opinions from the citizens. Next to Kiasma is the glass-walled Sanomatalo (1999).
There have been many plans to build highrise buildings in Helsinki since the 1920s when architect Eliel Saarinen proposed the 85-meter-tall Kalevalatalo in 1921, but few tall buildings were built until the 21st century. In 1924 Oiva Kallio won Etu-Töölö competition with his plan (several 14- to 16-story buildings). A 32-story city hall was also proposed. Other plans of the 1930s included the 18-story "Kino" palace, a 17-story apartment building, and a 30-story Stockmann building were proposed but only the 70-meter-tall 14-story Hotel Torni was built. (Hotel Torni was the tallest high-rise in Finland until 1976, when the 83-meter-tall Accountor Tower were completed in Espoo; Helsinki had rejected the tower.) Twin 30-story buildings were proposed in Pasila in the 1970s but were rejected. In 1990 a planned 104-meter-tall tower for the Kone company was also cancelled.
Highrise construction only started in the beginning of the 21st century, when the city decided to allow the construction of skyscrapers. Highrises were first built in Kalasatama, a primarily-residential district built on a former container port. As of 2024, four residential towers have been completed: the 35-story, 282-apartment, italic=unset in 2019 (which is the tallest building in Finland); the 32-story, 124-meter italic=unset in 2021; the 31-story, 120-meter italic=unset One in 2022; and the 24-story, 98-meter italic=unset in 2023. The 26-story, 111-meter-tall office building italic=unset is to be completed in 2025, and three further towers are to be built in the complex. Tall residential towers have also been built in the eastern district of Vuosaari: the 87-meter, 26-story Cirrus was completed in 2006, the 24-story, 85-meter-tall italic=unset was completed in 2023 and the 33-story, 288-apartment, 120-meter-tall italic=unset is due to be completed in late 2024.
Skyscrapers have also be planned in the Pasila area, with a handful of over-100-meter-tall towers in various stages of planning or early construction as of 2024. In Jätkäsaari, a 113-meter-tall hotel and a 24-story residential tower have been approved. 121- and 93-meter-tall office buildings are planned to be built in Ruoholahti. Well over 200 high-rise buildings will be built in Helsinki in the 2020s.
The freshest building styles in Helsinki also include low-carbon economy; for example, the white-colored Katajanokan Laituri building that opened in Katajanokka in the summer of 2024 is built from Finnish and Swedish wood. This building includes eco-friendly hotel Solo Sokos Pier 4.
Helsinki's city council consists of eighty-five members. Following the most recent municipal elections in 2025, the three largest parties are the National Coalition Party (21), the Social Democratic Party (21), and the Green League (16).
The Mayor of Helsinki is Daniel Sazonov.
At 53 percent of the population, women form a greater proportion of Helsinki residents than the national average of 51 percent. Helsinki's population density of 3,147 people per square kilometre makes Helsinki the most densely populated city in Finland. The life expectancy for men and women is slightly below the national averages: 75.1 years for men as compared to 75.7 years, 81.7 years for women as compared to 82.5 years.
Helsinki has experienced strong growth since the 1810s, when it replaced Turku as the capital of the Grand Duchy of Finland, which later became the sovereign Republic of Finland. The city continued its growth from that time on, with an exception during the Finnish Civil War. From the end of World War II up until the 1970s there was a massive exodus of people from the countryside to the cities of Finland, in particular Helsinki. Between 1944 and 1969 the population of the city nearly doubled from 275,000 to 525,600.
In the 1960s, the population growth of Helsinki began to decrease, mainly due to a lack of housing. Some residents began to move to the neighbouring cities of Espoo and Vantaa, resulting in increased population growth in both municipalities. Espoo's population increased ninefold in sixty years, from 22,874 people in 1950 to 244,353 in 2009. Vantaa saw an even more dramatic change in the same time span: from 14,976 in 1950 to 197,663 in 2009, a thirteenfold increase. These population changes prompted the municipalities of metropolitan area into more intense cooperation in areas such as public transportation – resulting in the foundation of HSL – and waste management. The increasing scarcity of housing and the higher costs of living in the capital region have pushed many daily commuters to find housing in formerly rural areas, and even further, to cities such as Lohja, Hämeenlinna, Lahti, and Porvoo.
In addition, the number of people who speak Sámi, Finland's third official language, was only persons () of the population. Although few people speak the Sámi languages as their mother tongue, there are 527 people of Sami origin. There are 93 Tatar speakers in Helsinki, almost half of the total number of Tatar speakers in Finland.
Helsinki slang is a regional dialect of the city. Historically, it was a combination of Finnish and Swedish, with influences from Russian and German. Nowadays it has a strong English influence. Today, however, Finnish is the common language of communication between Finnish speakers, Swedish speakers and speakers of other languages () in everyday public life between strangers.
The city of Helsinki and the national authorities have specifically targeted Swedish speakers. Knowledge of Finnish is essential in business and is usually a basic requirement in the labour market. Swedish speakers are most concentrated in the southern parts of the city. The district with the most Swedish speakers is Ullanlinna with 2,098 (19.6%), while Byholmen is the only district where Swedish is the majority language (at 82.8%). The number of Swedish speakers decreased every year until 2008, and has increased every year since then. Since 2007, the number of Swedish speakers has increased by 2,351. In 1890, Finnish speakers overtook Swedish speakers to become the majority of the city's population. At that time, the population of Helsinki was 61,530.
Foreign languages were spoken by of the population. As English language and Swedish language are compulsory school subjects, functional bilingualism or trilingualism acquired through language studies is not uncommon. At least 160 different languages are spoken in Helsinki. , the most common foreign languages are Russian language (3.1%), Somali language (2.2%), Arabic (1.6%), English language (1.5%), Estonian (1.4%), Chinese language (0.7%) and Persian language (0.7%).
| Population by country of birth (2024) | ||
| 77.9 | ||
| 2.1 | ||
| 1.5 | ||
| 1.2 | ||
| 0.9 | ||
| 0.7 | ||
| 0.7 | ||
| 0.5 | ||
| 0.5 | ||
| 0.5 | ||
| 0.5 | ||
| 9.3 | ||
The relative share of immigrants in Helsinki's population is twice the national average, and the city's new residents are increasingly of foreign origin. This will increase the proportion of foreign residents in the coming years. As a crossroads of many international ports and Finland's Helsinki Airport, Helsinki is the global gateway to and from Finland.
Most foreign-born citizens come from the former Soviet Union, Estonia, Somalia, Iraq, China and Russia.
The most important churches in Helsinki are Helsinki Cathedral (1852), Uspenski Cathedral (1868), St. John's Church (1891), Kallio Church (1912) and Temppeliaukio Church (1969).
There are 21 Lutheran congregations in Helsinki, 18 of which are Finnish-speaking and 3 are Swedish-speaking. These form Helsinki's congregationgroup. Outside that there is Finland's German congregation with 3,000 members and Rikssvenska Olaus Petri-församlingen for Swedish-citizens with 1,000 members.
The largest Orthodoxy congregation is the Orthodox Church of Helsinki. It has 20,000 members. Its main church is the Uspenski Cathedral. The two largest Catholicism congregations are the Cathedral of Saint Henry, with 4,552 members, established in 1860 and St Mary's Catholic Parish, with 4,107 members, established in 1954.
There are around 30 mosques in the Helsinki region. Many linguistic and ethnic groups such as Bangladeshis, Kosovo Albanians, Kurds and Bosniaks have established their own mosques. The largest congregation in both Helsinki and Finland is the , established in 1995. It has over 2,800 members , and it received €24,131 in government assistance.
In 2015, imam estimated that on big celebrations around 10,000 Muslims visit mosques. In 2004, it was estimated that there were 8,000 Muslims in Helsinki, 1.5% of the population at the time. The number of people in Helsinki with a background from Muslim majority countries was nearly 41,000 as of 2021, representing over 6% of the population.
The main synagogue of Helsinki is the Helsinki Synagogue from 1906, located in Kamppi. It has over 1,200 members, out of the 1,800 Jews in Finland, and it is the older of the two buildings in Finland originally built as a synagogue, followed by the Turku Synagogue in 1912. The congregation includes a synagogue, Jewish kindergarten, school, library, Jewish meat shop, two Jewish cemeteries and an retirement home. Many Jewish organizations and societies are based there, and the synagogue publishes the main Jewish magazine in Finland, .
The metropolitan area's gross value added per capita is 200% of the mean of 27 European metropolitan areas, equalling those of Stockholm and Paris. The gross value added annual growth has been around 4%.
83 of the 100 largest Finnish companies have their headquarters in the metropolitan area. Two-thirds of the 200 highest-paid Finnish executives live in the metropolitan area and 42% in Helsinki. The average income of the top 50 earners was 1.65 million euro.
The tap water is of excellent quality and it is supplied by the Päijänne Water Tunnel, one of the world's longest continuous rock tunnels.[7]
Helsinki is one of the co-location centres of the Knowledge and Innovation Community (Future information and communication society) of The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT).
The Finnish National Gallery consists of three museums: Ateneum for classical Finnish art, Sinebrychoff Art Museum for classical European art, and Kiasma for modern art, in a building by architect Steven Holl. The old Ateneum, a neo-Renaissance palace from the 19th century, is one of the city's major historical buildings. All three museum buildings are state-owned through Senate Properties.
The city of Helsinki hosts its own art collection in the Helsinki Art Museum (HAM), primarily located in its Tennispalatsi gallery. Around 200 pieces of public art lie outside. The art is all city property.
Helsinki Art Museum will in 2020 launch the Helsinki Biennial, which will bring art to maritime Helsinki – in its first year to the island of Vallisaari.
The Design Museum is devoted to the exhibition of both Finnish and foreign design, including industrial design, fashion, and graphic design. Other museums in Helsinki include the Military Museum of Finland, Didrichsen Art Museum, Amos Rex Art Museum, and the .
Many widely renowned and acclaimed bands have originated in Helsinki, including Children of Bodom, Hanoi Rocks, HIM, Stratovarius, The 69 Eyes, Finntroll, Ensiferum, Wintersun, The Rasmus, Poets of the Fall, and Apocalyptica. The most significant of the metal music events in Helsinki is the Tuska Open Air Metal Festival in Suvilahti, Sörnäinen.
The city's main musical venues are the Finnish National Opera, the Finlandia Hall, and the Helsinki Music Centre. The Music Centre also houses a part of the Sibelius Academy. Bigger concerts and events are usually held at one of the city's two big ice hockey arenas: the Helsinki Halli or the Helsinki Ice Hall. Helsinki has Finland's largest fairgrounds, the Messukeskus Helsinki, which is attended by more than a million visitors a year.
Helsinki Arena hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 2007, the first Eurovision Song Contest arranged in Finland, following Lordi's win in 2006.
At the Senate Square in fall 2010, Finland's largest open-air art exhibition to date took place: About 1.4 million people saw the international exhibition of United Buddy Bears.
Helsinki was the 2012 World Design Capital, in recognition of the use of design as an effective tool for social, cultural, and economic development in the city. In choosing Helsinki, the World Design Capital selection jury highlighted Helsinki's use of 'Embedded Design', which has tied design in the city to innovation, "creating global brands, such as Nokia, Kone, and Marimekko, popular events, like the annual , outstanding education and research institutions, such as the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, and exemplary architects and designers such as Eliel Saarinen and Alvar Aalto".
Helsinki hosts many film festivals. Most of them are small venues, while some have generated interest internationally. The most prolific of these is the Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy film festival, also known as Helsinki International Film Festival, which features films on a wide spectrum. Night Visions, on the other hand, focuses on genre cinema, screening horror film, fantasy, and science fiction films in very popular movie marathons that last the entire night. Another popular film festival is , a festival that focuses solely on documentary film cinema.
Sanoma publishes Finland's journal of record, Helsingin Sanomat, the tabloid Ilta-Sanomat, the commerce-oriented Taloussanomat, and the television channel Nelonen. Another Helsinki-based media house, Alma Media, publishes over thirty magazines, including the tabloid Iltalehti, and the commerce-oriented Kauppalehti.
Finland's national public-broadcasting institution Yle operates five television channels and thirteen radio channels in both national languages. Yle is headquartered in the neighbourhood of Pasila. All TV channels are broadcast digitally, both terrestrially and on cable. Yle's studio area houses the high television and radio tower, Yle Transmission Tower ( Pasilan linkkitorni), which is the third tallest structure in Helsinki and one of Helsinki's most famous landmarks, from the top of which, in good weather, can be seen even as far as Tallinn over the Gulf of Finland.
The commercial television channel MTV3 and commercial radio channel Radio Nova are owned by Nordic Broadcasting (Bonnier Group and Proventus).
As an important port city on the Baltic Sea, Helsinki has long been known for its fish food, and it has recently started to become one of the leading fish food capitals in Northern Europe. Helsinki's Market Square is especially known for its traditional herring market, which has been organized since 1743. Salmon is also a typical Helsinki fish dish, both fried and Fish soup. The most prestigious restaurants specializing in seafood include Restaurant Fisken på Disken.
Helsinki is currently experiencing a period of booming food culture, and it has developed into an internationally acclaimed food city, receiving recognition for promoting food culture; the city's gastronomy is considered unique, because many restaurants offers, in addition to fish dishes, reindeer, Moose, and even bear meat. The local food culture is made up of cuisines from around the world and the fusions they form. Various Asian cuisine such as Chinese cuisine, Thai cuisine, Indian cuisine and Nepalese cuisine are particularly prominent in Helsinki's cityscape, but over the past couple of years, restaurants serving Vietnamese food have been very popular. Sushi restaurant buffets have also made their way into the city's restaurant offerings in one fell swoop. The third prominent trend is restaurants serving pure local food, many of which specialize primarily in serving pure Nordic cuisine. In past years Middle Eastern food culture rose in its popularity. Especially Helsinki's eastern part offers many different options for Middle Eastern cuisine lovers. There is also some touches of Russian cuisine, one of which is the Finnish version of , a thick that are usually fried in a cast-iron pan. One of the most significant food culture venues in Helsinki is the general public area known as Teurastamo in the Hermanni district, which operated as the city's slaughterhouse between 1933 and 1992, to which the name of the place also refers.
A nationwide food carnival called Restaurant Day ( Ravintolapäivä) has begun in Helsinki and has traditionally been celebrated since May 2011. The purpose of the day is to have fun, share new food experiences and enjoy the common environment with the group.
Helsinki was elected host-city of the 1940 Summer Olympics, but due to World War II they were canceled. Instead Helsinki was the host of the 1952 Summer Olympics. The Olympics were a landmark event symbolically and economically for Helsinki and Finland as a whole that was recovering from the winter war and the continuation war fought with the Soviet Union. Helsinki was also in 1983 the first city to host the World Championships in Athletics. Helsinki also hosted the event in 2005, thus also becoming the first city to host the Championships for a second time. The Helsinki City Marathon has been held in the city every year since 1981, usually in August. HELSINKI CITY MARATON 40-VUOTIS JUHLAMITALI – Helsinki City Running Day (in Finnish) A Formula 3000 race through the city streets was held on 25 May 1997. In 2009 Helsinki was host of the European Figure Skating Championships, and in 2017 it hosted World Figure Skating Championships. The city will host the 2021 FIBA Under-19 Basketball World Cup. American football and the Vaahteraliiga has a strong tradition in the city dating back to the early 1980s; the Helsinki Roosters are the only Finnish team to have participated in the Vaahteraliiga since its inception in 1980 and are by far the most successful American football team in Finnish history.
Most of Helsinki's sports venues are under the responsibility of the city's sports office, such as 70 and about 350 . There are nine ice rinks, three of which are managed by the Helsinki Sports Agency ( Helsingin liikuntavirasto). In winter, there are seven artificial ice rinks. People can swim in Helsinki in 14 , the largest of which is the , two inland swimming pools and more than 20 , of which Hietaniemi Beach is probably the most famous. Liikuntaviraston liikuntapaikat (in Finnish)
Many important Finnish highways leave Helsinki for various parts of Finland; most of them in the form of , but a few of these exceptions include Vihdintie. The most significant highways are:
Helsinki has some 390 cars per 1000 inhabitants.[11] This is less than in cities of similar population and construction density, such as Brussels' 483 per 1000, Stockholm's 401, and Oslo's 413.
A majority of intercity passenger services in Finland originate or terminate at the Helsinki Central Railway Station. All major cities in Finland are connected to Helsinki by rail service, with departures several times a day. The most frequent service is to Tampere, with more than 25 intercity departures per day .
Until 2022 there also was an international services from Helsinki to Saint Petersburg and Moscow. The Saint Petersburg to Helsinki route was operated by Allegro high-speed trains.
A Helsinki to Tallinn Tunnel has been proposed and agreed upon by representatives of the cities. The rail tunnel would connect Helsinki to the capital Tallinn, further linking Helsinki to the rest of continental Europe by Rail Baltica.
Ferry connections to Tallinn, Mariehamn, and Stockholm are serviced by various companies; very popular MS J. L. Runeberg ferry connection to Finland's second oldest city, medieval old town of Porvoo, is also available for tourists. Helsinki–Porvoo cruise - MS J. L. Runeberg Finnlines passenger-freight ferries to Gdynia, Poland; Travemünde, Germany; and Rostock, Germany are also available. St. Peter Line offers passenger ferry service to Saint Petersburg several times a week.
Helsinki's tram system dates back to 1891 when the first horse-drawn trams were introduced; the system was electrified in 1900. (1973). 9789511022329, Otava. ISBN 9789511022329 , the system consists of 14 routes covering the inner part of the city center and one newer light rail style line connecting Keilaniemi in Espoo with Itäkeskus in eastern Helsinki. The length of the network is planned to more than double during the 2020s and 2030s compared to 2021, with major projects including Vantaa light rail, the Crown Bridges link to the island of Laajasalo and the West Helsinki light rail project connecting Kannelmäki to the city center. Construction work on the new tram as the number line 13 (Nihti–Kalasatama–Vallilanlaakso–Pasila) has begun in May 2020, and the line is scheduled for completion in 2024.
The commuter rail system includes purpose-built double track for local services in two rail corridors along intercity railways, and the Ring Rail Line, an urban double-track railway with a station at the Helsinki Airport in Vantaa. Electric operation of commuter trains was first begun in 1969, and the system has been gradually expanded since. 15 different services are operated , some extending outside of the Helsinki region. The frequent services run at a 10-minute headway in peak traffic.
Until 2022, Helsinki also had an international partnership with the Russian cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, which was suspended after Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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