List of towns in Finland

The following is a list of towns in Finland. In the year 1977, the legal difference between towns and municipalities was removed. Today they are all classified as municipalities, some of which are commonly referred to as towns (kaupunki in Finnish, 'stad' in Swedish). A municipality can itself decide whether it calls itself a municipality or a town. To date, many decide to use the latter.

There is no direct Finnish equivalent to "city", but "suurkaupunki", which literally means "large town", is used for only a few cities in Finland. This nicely fits the EU's definition of a city, which has a minimum population of 50 000 and a minimum population density of 500 inhabitants per square kilometer. A simple, independent decision in the municipal council is required to change the name of a rural "municipality" (kunta) into a "town" (kaupunki). For towns founded before the 1960s, the list includes the year the town was chartered.

A lot of municipal mergers have been carried out in Finland (and more are yet to come, due a countrywide municipal reform), which also makes it difficult to define "town", because in merger, while population increases a bit, population density decreases. For example, according to the EU definition, Tampere is no longer a city, due completed municipality mergers with Messukylä, Aitolahti and Teisko, decreasing its official population density to 410,5 inhabitants per square kilometer, dated in 1. July 2012. In Finland, the whole municipality area along its borders is officially considered the city or town area. From there on, villages, possible conurbation areas, and administrative center area (which consists the city center and districts of the city) are distinguished quite accurately in official concepts.

The names used in this encyclopedia are usually the Finnish or Swedish forms, depending on the majority language of the municipality, which is common practice where there is no independent English name.

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