City of Espoo
About the organisation
Espoo is a city and municipality in the region of Uusimaa in the Republic of Finland. It is located on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland, bordering the cities of Helsinki and Vantaa, while surrounding the enclaved town of Kauniainen. The city covers 528.03 square kilometres with a population of 292,913 residents in December 2020, making it the 2nd-most populous city in Finland.
Espoo forms a major part of a substantially larger metropolitan area known as Greater Helsinki, home to over 1.5 million people in 2020. The cityscape is dominated by detached housing and suburban environment, and the city itself is known for its large natural areas, including its long shoreline—58 kilometres in total—and archipelago, forests, lakes and a national park.
Administratively, the city is divided into seven major districts, and each major district is further divided into smaller districts and neighbourhoods. Espoo doesn’t have a traditional city centre, and instead, it has five distinct city centres—Leppävaara, Tapiola, Matinkylä, Espoon keskus and Espoonlahti—and numerous local centres, many of which are formed around historical manors.
Aalto University is based in Otaniemi, Espoo, along with a thriving science community that includes numerous startups and organizations such as VTT – the Technical Research Center of Finland. Several major companies are based in Espoo, including Nokia, HMD Global, Tieto, KONE, Neste, Fortum, Orion Corporation, Outokumpu, and Foreca, as well as video game developers Rovio and Remedy Entertainment
