Turku Attractions

About 5% of the population is Swedish-speaking, and the town attracts many visitors from neighboring Sweden. Turku is the chief town of the province of Turku-Pori, with the Provincial Court of Appeal (established here in 1623), and the seat of the Lutheran Archbishop of Finland. It has a Finnish and a Swedish university and a commercial college.

Together with neighboring Naantali the port of Turku handles a busy import and export trade. Turku is also an important industrial town (shipbuilding, engineering, foodstuffs, textiles, etc.); most of the industrial plants are on the outskirts of the town.

History

Turku lies in the area where the successors to the Swedish Vikings landed in the 12th century and set out to conquer what is now Finland. The Swedish name means "settlement by the river", the Finnish name "market place". In 1525 the town received its municipal charter from Gustavus Vasa; then in 1630 Gustavus Adolphus established a grammar school in the town which was raised to university status in 1640. In 1743 the treaty ending the two years' war between Russia and Sweden was signed in Turku. In 1809 the town, together with the rest of Finland, came under Russian control. In 1810 the seat of government was transferred to Helsinki, and in 1827, after a devastating fire, the university also moved there. After Finland became independent a new Swedish-language university was established as a private foundation in 1918, followed two years later by a state Finnish-language university. Thereafter Turku took on a new lease of life, and from the late 1950s onwards the town developed even more rapidly. For many years it was an important center for the building of icebreakers and other specialized types of vessel. During the 1970s it developed into a considerable tourist center.