Otaniemi

Otaniemi Otnäs
District of Espoo
Otaniemi from the air (1989).
Location of Otaniemi within Espoo
Coordinates: 60°11′N 24°50′E / 60.183°N 24.833°E / 60.183; 24.833Coordinates: 60°11′N 24°50′E / 60.183°N 24.833°E / 60.183; 24.833
Country	Finland
Municipality	Espoo
Region	Uusimaa
Sub-region	Greater Helsinki
Main District	Suur-Tapiola
Inner District(s)	Otaniemi, Keilaniemi
Population (2006)
• Total	3,496
Languages
• Finnish	82.6%
• Swedish	4.3%
• Other	13.2%
Jobs	12,826

Otaniemi (Finnish), or Otnäs (Swedish), is a district of Espoo, Finland. It is located near the border of Helsinki, the capital of Finland.

Otaniemi is the home of the Aalto University engineering schools campus, thus "Otaniemi" is often used as a synonym for Aalto. However, several research and business facilities are also located in Otaniemi. The most prominent institutions for science and engineering in Otaniemi are the Finnish Innovation Center, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and KCL pulp and paper research center of VTT, the Micronova Center of Micro and Nanotechnology, the CSC IT Center for Scientific Computing, the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK), and the National Bureau of Measures (MIKES). Business is represented in the area by the business incubator Technopolis. In 2010, Otaniemi became home to Aalto University, formed from the merger of the Helsinki University of Technology, the University of Art and Design Helsinki, and the Helsinki School of Economics.

As late as the 1940s, Otaniemi was part of the Hagalund manor and used as a park and farmland, from where an old linden allée survives. In 1949, the Government of Finland purchased the lands of Hagalund Manor for use as the campus of the Helsinki University of Technology and the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. First to be built was the student campus of the Helsinki University of Technology, which also served as one of the Olympic Villages in the 1952 Summer Olympics. Several thousand students currently live in Otaniemi. The region has since been built up around TKK and VTT, and is at the core of Finnish scientific and technological activities.