Espoo (Esbo in Swedish) is a city on the Southern coast of Finland. It is part of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area along with Helsinki, Vantaa and Kauniainen. Espoo shares its western border with Helsinki and Vantaa, while enclosing Kauniainen. Other bordering municipalities are Nurmijrvi and Vihti in the north and Kirkkonummi in the west.
Espoo encompasses 528km, 312km of which land. The current population is 227,472 (as of 2004-12-31).
Even though Espoo received its first permanent inhabitants during the 12th and 13th century, it would take until the 1950s for major developments to start. Due to its proximitity to Helsinki, Espoo soon became popular amongst the people working in the capital. The population grew from 22,000 in 1950 to 210,000 in 2000. The population growth still continues, albeit at a slower rate.
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Kauniainen (Grankulla in Swedish) is a small municipality of 8,426 inhabitants (as of March 2005) in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Finland. Kauniainen is completely surrounded by the municipality of Espoo.
The local taxation rate in Kauniainen is the lowest in Finland (15%), and so it tends to attract the highest earners, hence it is a generally wealthy place, and hence it can keep the taxation rate low without compromising the service to the inhabitants.
Approximately 40% of the population have Swedish as their mother tongue; the rest are Finnish speakers. The dominant party in the town assembly has traditionally been the Swedish
Outokumpu is a group of companies headquartered in Espoo, Finland, aimed at stainless steel, copper products and technology.
Kaskinen (Kaskö in Swedish) is a municipality of Finland. It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Ostrobothnia region. The municipality has a population of 1,558 (2003) and covers an area of 10.23 km² of which 0.15 km² is water. The population density is 152.3 inhabitants per km².
The municipality is bilingual, with majority being Finnish and minority Swedish speakers.
Kaskinen is the smallest town in Finland.
Kaarina (S:t Karins in Swedish) is a town and municipality of Finland.
It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Finland Proper region. The municipality has a population of 21,151 (2003) and covers an area of 60.59 km² of which 0.89 km² is water. The population density is 349 inhabitants per km².
The municipality is unilingually Finnish.
Pargas (Parainen in Finnish) is a municipality of Finland.
It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Finland Proper region. The municipality has a population of 12,001 (2003) and covers an area of 272.79 km² of which 1.19 km² is water. The population density is 44.2 inhabitants per km².
The municipality is bilingual, with majority being Swedish and minority Finnish speakers.
