History of Helsinki
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Helsinki (Helsingfors) was founded by Swedish King Gustav Vasa in 1550 for the purpose of consolidating trade in the southern part of Finland and providing a competitor to Tallinn, a nearby Hanseatic League city which dominated local trade at the time. In order to ensure the economic viability of the city, the King ordered the citizens of several other towns to relocate to Helsinki, but the order does not seem to have achieved its intended effect. The Swedish acquisition of northeastern Estonia, including Tallinn, at the conclusion of the Livonian War, caused the Swedish crown to lose interest in building up a competitor to Tallinn, and Helsinki languished as a forgotten village for decades thereafter.
Helsinki was moved from its original location at the mouth of the River Vantaa in 1640, but the improved harbor failed to attract traders. It was fortified by Swedish authorities after Sweden's defeat in the Great Northern War. After Helsinki was temporarily occuppied by Russian forces twice in the first half of the eighteenth century, the Swedish army constructed the sea-fortress of Suomenlinna to protect the city from further attacks
When sovereignty over Finland was transferred from Sweden to Russia in 1809, the Russian government decided to relocate the Finnish capital from Turku - an ethnically Swedish capital on the edge of the Baltic Sea - to Helsinki. It was believed that the lack of Swedish influence in the town, combined with the relative closeness to St. Petersburg, would make a Finnish government headquartered in Helsinki easier to control; and the presence of Suomenlinna made the city invulnerable to foreign attack. The Russian authorities rebuilt the city, intending to turn it into a stylish modern capital along the lines of St. Petersburg.
During the nineteenth century, Helsinki became the economic and cultural center of Finland. Its population grew rapidly, as demonstrated by the following table.
Historical population of Helsinki
- 1810: 4,070 inhabitants
- 1830: 11,100
- 1850: 20,700
- 1880: 43,300
- 1900: 93,600
- 1925: 209,800
- 2001: 559,718
See also: History of Finland