Espoo

Espoo is the second largest city and municipality in Finland. The population of the city of Espoo is 244,353 (31 December 2009). It is part of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area along with the cities of Helsinki, Vantaa, and Kauniainen. Espoo shares its eastern border with Helsinki and Vantaa, while enclosing Kauniainen. Today, Espoo is the only municipality in Finland to fully enclose another municipality. The city is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, in the region of Uusimaa. Other bordering municipalities of Espoo are Nurmijärvi and Vihti in the north and Kirkkonummi in the west. The national park of Nuuksio is situated in northwest Espoo. Espoo encompasses 528 square kilometres (204 sq mi), of which 312 km (120 sq mi) is land. Espoo has several local regional centers. Espoo is thus divided into seven major areas: Vanha-Espoo, Suur-Espoonlahti, Pohjois-Espoo, Suur-Kauklahti, Suur-Leppävaara, Suur-Matinkylä and Suur-Tapiola. The Helsinki University of Technology 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. Nokia, the telecommunications company, is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, along with other high-tech companies such as KONE, Tekla and Fortum. The city of Espoo is officially bilingual. The majority of the population speaks Finnish as their mother tongue and they stand at 83.6% of the population. The minority speaks Finland Swedish and they stand at 8.3 percent of the population. Espoo's population that has a first language other than Finnish or Swedish stand at 8% of the population.